


In Touch

by ottermo



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Post Season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:45:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 48,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have to cut off all ties, Leo says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first proper Humans fic (up to now I've just been borrowing things for crossovers). I'm keeping the chapters suuuuuper short so that I can update semi-regularly, but let's see how it goes!
> 
> I'd love to hear what you think. I'm complete Leo/Mattie trash by this point in my life, so expect that to be the main direction... it just might take a while.

They are Leo's words: "This has to be goodbye. We can't ask them to put themselves in danger for us anymore."

It's Mia's slow nod, the flicker of an argument that passes across her face, but doesn't surface. She knows it's for the best.

It's Max, between the two of them, who puts an arm round each, because leaving the Hawkinses behind is just the first difficult step of this journey. But it's one they have to take.

There's a silent consensus - Leo gets them all new phones, untraceable by Hobb, and doesn't copy Mattie's number across. Mia doesn't add Laura's, either.

Max only smiles. It's as if they're both pretending the other is incapable of remembering a string of eleven digits.

* * *

 

Mattie stops expecting Leo to call her sometime in the third week.

She's not upset, or anything. It's like he said, she didn't really know him. He barely even said goodbye to her.

And she's happy for him - he's got Max and Mia back, and that's what he wanted all along. He never pretended he had any other motive. Mattie had been useful, for a bit. So what if he didn't think she was stupid? Didn't mean he thought she was anything great, either.

She buries herself in whatever she can find - coursework, headcracker forums, pages of code that scroll past her eyes for hours on end but never transform into trees, never show a hint of life. In the last week of the spring term, two idiots from WAP come and do an assembly for the entire sixth form, and Mattie spends the whole time gritting her teeth, hands curled into fists so tight she ends up drawing blood in little crescent shapes across her palm.

"You need to cut your nails," Harun jokes as they walk out of the lecture theatre, and then adds quietly, "You alright?"

Mattie growls an affirmative and swings her bag over her shoulder, glad that their next lessons are in opposite directions.

Her Ethics teacher is probably going to faint dead away from shock if she actually turns an essay in for once, but Mattie spends her free period that afternoon typing one. Partly because the last place Harun will look for her is in the library. Partly because they asked for a response to this morning's presentation, and Mattie has a lot she'd like to throw in the faces of We Are People.

She almost deletes it once she's purged her anger into .docx form, but ends up printing all four pages and marching them up to the Hums staffroom. She plants them on the desk nearest the door, wondering what Brooksy will make of her vehement defence of Synthetics and their potential, amid the regurgitated WAP bile she's already heard most of her classmates rehearsing.

Leo Elster might have forgotten she exists already, but she can't go back to how she was before they met.

* * *

 

Laura gets the photo album down to show Joe, eventually - he talks softly about how alike the children are around the eyes, how Toby's nose has an ancestor after all. He tells her about his own sister and their childhood beach holidays, coaxing her to share memories too, but Laura's only got snippets left. You don't keep it as long when there's no-one to remind you of the details you missed.

She's in a melancholy mood for the rest of the evening, but then, at a quarter past nine, her phone pings. It's one of those location shares you can send, a little arrow on a map, marking a spot a few miles east of London. It's accompanied by a smiley face and a kiss. She doesn't need to text back to ask who it is.

_Glad you're safe. Look after yourselves x_

It's the first of many texts Mia hides under the long sleeves of her jumper, where Leo can't see.

you, too. X

* * *

 

As it turns out, Brooks never finds that essay. Mr Lundstrom, the head of the department, snatches it up first and - for reasons Mattie can't fathom - enters it into a competition run by a scientific journal. Mattie has no hopes to get up, so when the letter arrives saying 'Congratulations', she can't think at first what it's about.

The essay causes such a stir in the research community that a few national newspapers print it too, along with Mattie's name and a square picture cropped from her year 11 school photo. Thankfully, none of the articles make any mention of the fact that her family once harboured a group of fugitive Synthetics. That secret's safe, even if the whole country now knows she started her GCSE year with acne all across her forehead, and really, they couldn't have airbrushed that out?

To Mattie's disdain, Laura insists that they all go out for a meal to celebrate her success. "You choose where we go," her parents say, but Mattie can't bring herself to care, so she defers to Sophie.

Joe spends a while Googling, to find out which of the nearby McDonaldses has the biggest PlayPlace.

"You could leave me one thing to be the best at," Toby laments, jokingly, in the car on the way. "You've always had maths and computers, and now you're a writing genius too?"

"It wasn't about the writing," Mattie says stonily, eyes on her phone screen.

Toby rolls his eyes.

"I'm the best at drawing," Sophie pipes up. Nobody argues with this self-evident truth.

Later that night, exhausted from the pretence of not being Very Over her tremendous success, Mattie retires to her room even before Sophie's sent to bed. Her email inbox is full of notifications about people writing rubbish on her Facebook wall, as if she cares that they think she's clever. They wouldn't know clever if it walked up and slapped them in the face.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket: unknown number.

_told u so !_

From this Mattie learns two things: 1) He hasn't forgotten her. 2) He still texts like an old man.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my, thank you so much for all the comments! I love this fandom. 
> 
> This is the fastest I've posted a new chapter in a long time. You have your good selves to thank :)
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr! I am often to be found blabbering rubbish in the #AMC Humans tag there under the name of wellamarke :-)

Mattie's instinct is to wait a few minutes before replying, in a 'good to hear from you I didn't miss you' kind of way, but she can't help herself. She fires off an answer,

New phone? What, are you on the run or something? :P

She adds the number to her contacts, and he's replied before she even presses 'save'.

_well theres that. and i thought i shd upgrade now ive got a famous friend_

And it's stupid, but one word undoes weeks of silence. _Friend._ It means all the more coming from one of the only people Mattie knows who's even less friendly than she is.

But you're okay though? All of you?

Too late she realises that's two texts in a row composed entirely of double questions, but it's not as if Leo's ever heard of texting etiquette. A fact he's about to prove all over again.

_all fine. sorry if u were worried. i dont want u or ur family 2 get in any trouble bc of us again, so i just wanted to say well done. thx for the positive press. take care matilda_

And...well. It kills the goofy smile, at least. Mattie lies flat on her back and frowns at her bedroom ceiling for a moment or two, wondering why he'd started up a jokey back-and-forth just to cut her off with a 'take care' and her proper name.

What's the point of that?

Sophie explodes into her room, pyjama-clad and still clutching her Happy Meal toy, and demands a goodnight kiss and cuddle. "Because you're sooooooooo clever, Mats!"

"If you say so, teeny," she mumbles into her sister's hair. "Night night."

"See you in the morning," Sophie says, scrambling down off the bed. "Love you!"

"Love you too. Sleep tight." Her door closes. _Take care_. What did he mean, _take care_? She's not the one running around the country with a couple of Most Wanted synths, refusing help before it's even offered.

Her phone screen's still unlocked, and she types in a message as bitterly as thumbs alone can manage. She might as well say it anyway.

If you need anything, you know where we are.

"Delivered", the little box underneath confirms. Her phone doesn't buzz again.

* * *

More than once, Laura's had to prise the feather duster out of Sophie's little hands before she leaves for school with it. This morning, though, before taking it away: "Say cheese, Soph!"

She snaps a quick photo of her daughter's uncannily Synth-like, plastered-on smile. The feather duster's poised, still stroking the edge of the radiator. "Done. Hmm, those aren't your school shoes, madam!"

Sophie hands the duster over and giggles at her own silliness, sitting on the floor to trade her pink fluffy slippers for her black patent Clarks. Laura types out a quick caption and then finds the 'send' option. She watches as the little blue bar creeps across the screen, letting her know the photo's on its way.

* * *

Mia's phone takes an age to download the MMS, but it's worth it. After a few seconds of cooing silently at Sophie's little face, though, she's gripped by a sudden sense of loss - nothing like loosing Leo, of course, but still it hurts. She's glad Leo isn't there to see - just Max. Max whose eyes pretty much engulf her with empathy even without asking what's wrong, Max who runs his hands from her shoulders to her elbows as he pulls her close, touching his forehead gently to hers.

"I just miss her," she whispers, and Max hums back in understanding. He shifts his head slightly to move into a hug, and suddenly Mia's back in the crypt, being held the same way by Laura, and she's not sure any more who she'd meant by the word 'her'.

"When we're free," Max says, "We'll see her again."

* * *

Somewhere west of them, Leo stands on a hilltop, eyes straining to scout out their next move. The sour taste of his last message to Mattie still lines his mouth as if he'd said the words out loud, and he almost wishes he could have done. He doesn't have the organic problem of forgetting the sound of somebody's voice - she's there, crystal clear in his files, good for endless replaying - but that just makes him want to hear it again all the more. That delicate mix of challenge and curiosity, the way he always felt he had to explain himself around her, but not always as a defence. She was on his side.

Well, not anymore.

He can't expect her to endanger her family, so until they've got Fred back somehow, until the problem of Hobb's solved once and for all and they can make a proper decision about the secrets on Laura's flash drive, he's got no right to think of her as somebody to burden. She's done enough already.

He kicks mindlessly at some stones, turning them over in the soil. It had been stupid of him to contact her at all, but he thinks back to the swell of pride he felt when he read her closing words in the paper, as raw and open as if they were addressed to him personally. _'However many people are against us, there will always be hope for those who understand that this isn't the end for humans and Synths: it's the beginning of a golden age, which will change us for the better, like every other.'_

She could have said, 'like _any_ other'. It would have flowed better. Even the briefest of proofreads should have picked that up. But she hadn't. She'd said _Like Every Other_.

He doesn't want to know if it was coincidence or a message. He's never going to ask.

They'll continue east, he decides, starting back down the hill. He's kept Max and Mia waiting long enough as it is.

* * *

Laura shouts a reminder to Toby that his lunch is in the fridge before they leave, Sophie's hand in hers. Her last case only ended yesterday, so for a couple of days she's free to do one of her favourite jobs - walking her baby girl to school.

"We're doing painting again today!" Sophie announces as they walk down the driveway. "Mrs Dimmand says we can bring home all the ones we finish!"

"Oh, lovely," Laura enthuses, "Well, there's some space on the fridge for a really special picture."

Sophie nods, then looks up at Laura, questions etched all over her face. "Mummy, if I do a painting for Mia, can we send it to her? From the post office like with grandad's?"

The only experience Sophie has with snail mail is sending pictures to Joe's dad, who always sends back a thank you note and a 50p coin. Sophie keeps the money in a neat pile next to her craft box, as a fund to be spent exclusively on new art things. Paul Hawkins has been supplying his own art gallery, unknowing, for almost a year in this way.

"Well, she doesn't--" Laura stops herself. She _could_ send the picture to Mia, just not with a stamp and envelope. "Yes," she corrects. "Yeah, do her a picture. She'll love it."

Sophie beams.

Laura fishes her phone out of her pocket to look at Mia's reply again.

Ahhh!! Sweet little mouse. See, you don't need Anita after all ;-) x

Well, she has a point. They'd never really needed _Anita_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so grateful for all the comments, you guys are amazing! 
> 
> I hope you like this next one. It's a little less shippy...but I'm setting up a couple of other threads, since I can't totally ignore Hobb forever...

It's a beautiful model. Sadiq has never seen one with this face before, so it must be a Unique. Harder to sell on undetected, but usually more interesting to mod. And to think a couple of kids had found it abandoned under a rug somewhere. He plucks a few fibres off the Synthetic's clothing. Where did they say it was? In a crypt? People do the weirdest things to get rid of junk.

Silas will know what to do with it, anyway. He'd better get it to the workshop. 

* * *

School, the day after becoming a media sensation, seems to drag on for at least a decade. It takes Mattie about seven times longer than usual to walk to her maths lesson, because every teacher she walks past stops her in the corridor to congratulate her. "You've done the school proud." "I knew you had it in you." "Finally living up to those brains of yours!"

She doesn't feel like being polite, but after all she wants to attract people to the pro-Synth movement, not put them off, so she smiles and nods and says 'thank you' and agrees to all the requests to 'keep it up'.

As if she'd done it for them. As if it was school work, not an outpouring of her actual literal heart. 

"Meet you at the park later?" Harun asks as they part ways at the school gates, because it's Friday and that's what Fridays used to be for, back before the Elsters. Since then, something's managed to get in the way most weeks.

"Yeah," Mattie says, a little distantly. "See you."

* * *

Sophie emerges from her classroom wielding a pile of paintings, a couple of them still sticky. "There's one for you, mummy," she informs Laura, peeling the top layer off and handing her mother a picture of a very large, very yellow flower sprouting from a teeny-tiny pot. "And one for Mattie--"

"Careful, you'll drop them," Laura says, catching the second picture as it nearly escapes Sophie's grasp. "Let's have a look when we get home, we don't want to spoil them."

Sophie agrees, and hands Laura the rest of the pile in order to concentrate on the vital business of not stepping on the cracks in the pavement.

"We're doing Africa on Monday," she remarks, hopping diagonally across the path.

"Mmm?" Laura hums, taking a sneak peak at the other pictures. There seem to be seven in total. One, the most bizarre, seems to show two tiny figures riding on a...hippo, maybe. Or a dragon? Hard to tell.

"Africa isn't a country, did you know that? It's lots of little countries stuck together like a puzzle. Mrs Dimmand said to bring in something for the display."

"Did she?" The picture she assumes is for Toby is of a big red train. Or in any case, something big and red with wheels.

"Where do giraffes live? I think giraffes are from Africa. I could take Mr Patches in."

"Good idea." Laura takes Sophie's hand to cross the road. "Put him in your bookbag when you get home, so you won't forget."

Sophie used to take Mr Patches everywhere she went. Funny, Laura can't remember seeing the little stuffed giraffe for a little while. Not since the day they'd gone to meet Mia and everyone with the supplies.

Still, it must be around somewhere.

* * *

Leo eyes the rain cloud up above, not slowing his pace. "Charge levels?"

"Thirty-eight," Mia responds.

"Fifty-one." Max follows Leo's gaze. "Is it safe to put up the tent?" They can't risk the solar charging unit getting wet, not after Leo spent so long tracking one down.

"Safe as we're going to get, probably," Leo says, not full of hope. "Just a bit further into the trees. We're too near the road, here."

They follow him. Mia can't help but think of the last time they pitched tents in a forest, a lifetime ago. But she shoves the unpleasant memories aside, reminding herself that in the last five weeks, since leaving the Hawkinses behind, they've camped in much more open places without being disturbed. That was just bad luck, the first time.

As Leo and Max unzip the bag and unroll the canvas, Mia slips her phone out of the zip pocket of her backpack and sends Laura a location update.

Camping again before it rains on us! X

She kneels down to help with the tent, sliding poles out of the bag and helping Max slot them through the correct flaps while Leo smooths out the groundsheet. Once the main structure is in place, she checks her phone surreptitiously, two metal pegs in her hand to give her an excuse to walk round the back of the tent.

Laura's sent another picture. Mia twists the first peg into the soil as she waits for it to download. Slowly, slowly.

It takes so long, again, that by the time the image is ready to open, the tent is finished. She's sitting inside, hearing the first few raindrops hit the sides.

It's a picture of a picture - a painting, in fact. Unmistakably Sophie's work, her very own brand of stick figures, with big eyes and wide smiles. There are two of them, holding hands - a tall, black-haired, green-eyed Mia, and a littler one she assumes is meant to be Sophie herself. "To Mia love Sophie xxxxxxx" is written across the bottom.

Laura has captioned it,

_Good idea! Stay safe. Soph did this for you at school. Have you got a number for your sister? There's one for her as well x_

Mia hesitates. She's only heard from Niska twice since they parted ways, and both times Nis had been cagey about where she was and what she was doing, reminding Mia that she'd wanted to live her own life - as if she could forget that in a hurry.

Ahhh I love it! Thanks Sophie :) :) Send Niska's to me and I'll pass it on?

She adds, then deletes, a whole paragraph about not knowing how Niska would react and how worried she is about what she might be getting herself into, and how she doesn't keep in touch.... Laura doesn't need to know, Mia tells herself. She adds another smiley face and the usual kiss, and hopes Laura doesn't think she's rude for not just giving her the number. Like any normal person, with a normal sister, would be able to do.

* * *

"I can't find him anywhere," Sophie says plaintively, her arms outstretched in utter despair. "I've looked in every box!"

"Silly old Mr Patches," Laura says comfortingly, "He must be hiding. When was the last time you saw him, sweetheart?"

"I don't..." Sophie looks confused. "I haven't seen him for aaaaages. He must be really sad."

Laura frowns. "Because I was thinking," she says, running a hand through Sophie's curly mop of hair, "I haven't seen him since we went and gave Mia and everyone all their presents. Do you remember?"

Sophie nods solemnly. "Then we had to run away. Maybe I dropped him."

Her face crumples, and Laura sets her mug of tea down on the side, just in time to receive the bundle of Sophie that tumbles into her lap for a cuddle. "We'll go and have a look for him tomorrow, with Daddy, hmm?"

* * *

Mattie refuses the cigarette in Harun's outstretched hand. "You finish it, I'm fine."

He frowns at her. "Why are you acting weird?"

She turns away from him, looking out onto the golf course. "I'm not."

"Okay."

He lets the silence sit for a minute or two, while he inhales and exhales. Mattie thinks back to his words last time - _know why I like smoking weed with you? I feel like it...thicks you down a bit._ He'd been right. It had always been a nice feeling, not thinking quite so hard about all the potential she had, and how it would only go to waste in a world where Synths could be supersurgeons. But so much of that anger has gone, and, well, it matters, not being stupid. It had mattered to Leo.

"You know," Harun is saying, "last time we were here, we..."

Mattie tries to ignore the comment, but when she glances at him, she finds his eyes fixed on her. He looks so hopeful, and it kills her because Harun's great, really, and he's such a good friend and he cares about her, and if it wasn't for...

For what?

For _Leo_?

Wow, maybe she _is_ stupid, after all. Even if thinking of Leo in that way wasn't a ridiculous idea, he'd made it pretty clear he didn't want to keep her in the loop anymore. Who had she ever been kidding, anyway? _take care matilda_ , nobody at all.

I'm taking care, she thinks as she presses her lips against Harun's for the first time since the first time. It tastes like giving up, if she's honest.

* * *

"I've never seen code like it," Silas says, scratching his head. "But listen. Remember that Chinese-looking bird you shifted for me a while back? I'm trying the same thing on this one."

Sadiq watches as the other man types furiously, fingers flying over the keyboard, possessed.

"Can't delete this root. It just repairs itself, and there's all this extra muck weaved through it...but with her we chucked it all into sensory, where it can't do any harm."

"Can you do that again?"

"Trying." A few more key strokes, then Silas curses loudly, and tries again. "Come back tomorrow. If I can't reset him he'll be good for scrapping. We could make a mint off this kind of hardware." 

Sadiq knows that when Silas says "we", he's not necessarily referring to Sadiq too. But he shrugs. There's nothing he can do without Silas's help, after all. "All right. Tomorrow."

Silas doesn't say goodbye. He continues working until he's sure the bastard root is buried. Once it's done, he slams the laptop shut and cracks open a can of beer.

Somewhere deep, Fred screams.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if I'm being repetitive, but...thank you all so much for the comments!
> 
> For as long as you keep spurring me on, I'll try and keep the updates daily! 
> 
> Oh, and behold: an OC has appeared...

Cindy is watching her again, and Niska is trying not to mind.

Trying, failing...

"What _now_ ," she snaps, whirling around to confront the other Synth.

Cindy's eyes widen in fright at the sudden movement, and she visibly flinches. "Sorry, sorry."

"I've told you," Niska continues sharply, "You can't keep following me around. The whole point of this," she gestures between the two of them, and Cindy watches her hand move, warily. "The whole _point_ is so that you can live your own life. If I'd wanted a slave to shadow me I could have left you as you were."

"I know, Niska," Cindy says, and it's barely more than a whisper. "Sorry." Her lips set in a thin line and she looks at her feet, seeming to close in on herself.

Niska huffs in frustration, at herself as much as at Cindy. If she hadn't been so easily swayed, if she'd chosen her first subject more carefully... But she'd seen this slender, blonde, pathetic-looking creature turfed out of one of those _disgusting_ places, abandoned after one of the punters had tried to mod her, and Niska had seen, just for a second, something of herself...

Well, she'd been wrong. Cindy is nothing like her, as it turns out. Cindy is weak, even now that she's conscious.

Still, Niska tries to remind herself that it's not Cindy's fault she's here. She would be scrapped by now, recycled into oblivion, and if Niska hadn't wrenched her into the wide world of consciousness, she'd be at peace. Where her constant apologising wouldn't be bothering anyone.

"Anyway," Niska says, trying to sound a little less harsh, "What did you want?"

Cindy looks up at her shyly. Then she stretches out her hand, "I was just bringing you this."

It's Niska's phone, which is flashing up a new message. She takes it, with a brisk nod.

Cindy doesn't leave, though. Her brother's words - _be nice_ \- still ringing in her memory, Niska rolls her eyes and adds (somewhat insincerely), "Thanks?" Then she wafts Cindy away with her hand.

The other Synth finally shuffles off, and Niska turns her attention to the phone.

"Who's Mimi?" Cindy asks then, oh-so-quietly, still facing away from Niska.

Irritation flares up immediately, but she quenches it, because after all, _curiosity_ is new for Cindy. It's one of the qualities she's been so sorely lacking, and scaring it off would be stupid at this point.

"My sister," she says, bluntly but without malice. To her relief, Cindy nods at this and leaves her be.

Alone at last, Niska opens the message. Mia's attached a picture, and she frowns at that, but taps 'download' anyway.

Laura asked me to pass this on. It's from Sophie. If you say something mean back I'm just going to tell them you loved it.  
Hope you're okay. Xxx

Despite herself, Niska feels a smile creep across her face as the image appears on the screen. It's a sloppy, child's painting, and she's sure it wouldn't make sense to anyone else, but it brings back flashes of That Day - Sophie's two blonde-haired dolls, riding off on the T-rex, rushing to catch their flight. Actually, it's... Niska's not sure what this feeling is, really. But whatever it's called, it makes her fingers tap and tap until the picture's set as her homescreen background.

After hesitating only slightly, she replies to Mia.

_No need to make it up. It's brilliant, actually. Tell her I hope Arabella is behaving herself._

She locks the screen and slides the phone into her pocket.

* * *

It's getting a little cold, but Mattie isn't going to let Harun see her shivering. The last thing she needs is a chivalrous gesture to make her feel even worse about kissing him again.

He laces his fingers through hers, hesitant at first, but when she doesn't snatch her hand away his confidence grows. His hands are....nice? Not too soft, not too hard. Great, Mattie thinks, now I sound like Goldilocks.

She realises at this point that it might be a good idea to tune in to what he's saying.

"So then they had a massive row. But at the end of it, dad agreed! I couldn't believe it."

Mattie gives him a smile, encouraging him to continue, even though she doesn't really remember him starting the story.

"The thing is though, he's, like, _totally_ clueless. He asked me if I knew what batteries you put in!"

Mattie laughs politely, because it seems the right place. At any rate, it's nice to see Harun talk about his dad in a tone other than 'Pitiful'.

"So anyway, I was thinking, could you come with us to get it?"

Ah, she might have to come clean now. She gives a tiny shake of her head, and says, "Sorry. Wasn't concentrating. To get what?"

He frowns at her. "To get our Synth! From Persona Synthetics. On Monday. Mats...what's on your mind?"

She gives him what she hopes is a reassuring smile. "Nothing important. Monday sounds good to me."

He looks relieved. "Cool. Thanks. I wasn't sure if... After your one got nicked, and that."

Mattie'd almost forgotten that cover story. It had worked for the disappearance of Anita as well as the police crawling all over her house. "Yeah, well, she was faulty anyway."

Harun nods, chewing on his lip. "I'd better get back," he says, at length. He sounds reluctant to leave her - Mattie, on the other hand, sort of wishes he'd said it about an hour ago.

"Me too," she says, and at the park gate she gets away with just kissing him on the cheek.

* * *

Robert's patience is being tried once again.

"Look, with the right modifications--"

"I don't want to hear it, Hobb. Her upstairs has given you enough chances at this." He slams a desk drawer shut, as if to punctuate his point.

Hobb persists, though. Robert rues the day the old man was demoted so far that he has to grovel like this. It was easier to manage when he just got on with it, trailing Robert after him like a vestigial tail. "We've got 83% of the code on disk. All we need to do is close up some of the gaps - I know it won't be perfect--"

"You're right, it won't." Robert rubs his eyes, wearily. "You have no idea what you're meddling with. Elster will have installed all sorts of safeguards..."

"Just let me try."

Silence.

And Robert can't help it - he can't ignore the twist of _what if_ that dances round the pit of his stomach. So Hobb wants to try his hand at being Doctor Frankenstein? What difference does it make, after everything else? "On your own head be it."

It _might_ work, after all.

* * *

Miraculously, Mr Patches is still intact. The little toy giraffe lies forlornly on a paving slab just next to the shelter where they'd arranged to meet the Elsters, all those weeks ago. When an ecstatic Sophie thrusts him joyfully into her hands, Laura thinks wistfully of that day. Oh, it had been tense and there were all those threats looming over them, but...for a moment, they'd all been together. Safe.

"Wow, you're a lucky girl, Soph," Joe says, chuckling. "Poor Mr Patches. He probably ought to go on a little trip to the washing machine, as his next adventure."

Sophie takes her toy back from Laura, and hugs it tightly. "And then I'll wrap him up in a nice warm towel and get him all dry. He must have got so cold!"

She skips ahead of them, still holding the bedraggled toy close.

As they begin to walk back to the car, Joe slips his arm through Laura's, and she smiles at him.

"Seems like an age," he says, "last time we were here."

"Yeah," Laura agrees, because it does. And yet, in some ways, it seems like only seconds ago that she handed the bags over, watched them all don the warm woollen hats with gratitude that practically dripped from them, even Niska.

"I know how this is going to sound," Joe says, carefully, "but I'm glad that's all over with. It wasn't safe."

Laura lets this hang, because however true that is, she can't be glad they're gone.

"I mean, I wish them well," he adds, as if he'd heard her thoughts. "They were good kids. You know, on balance. But they weren't our problem."

"Yes, well," Laura says, more waspishly than she'd planned. "They went, didn't they. You got what you wanted."

He leaves it for a few seconds, and she thinks he's dropped it. "You've not heard from them?"

And for all his faults, it's in the interests of their whole family that she doesn't lie to him anymore. Or not completely, anyway. "Once or twice."

"Right." Wisely, Joe doesn't push her to elaborate. "Well, they're making their own way. That's good."

And when Laura's phone buzzes a few seconds later, she decides that now is probably not the best time to call Sophie over and tell her that Niska liked her picture.

What Joe doesn't know can't hurt him.

* * *

Mia's phone display tells her it's a Saturday.

The first night in the forest had passed pretty uneventfully. Max had spotted some squirrels, and had told them all about the rise and fall of the British red, and the invasion of the genetically superior greys... Part of Mia is glad Niska wasn't there, to turn it into an ominous metaphor about 'taking their place in the world'.

And then they'd all settled down to charge. Tonight, she supposes, will be just as peaceful.

Well, that isn't quite... She's not _psychic_ , after all.

* * *

At first, Laura isn't sure what's woken her up.

She lays awake in the darkness, hoping it's not a bout of insomnia rearing its ugly head. But then she recognises the low humming sound, and snatches up her phone.

_Incoming call: Mia._

She climbs out of bed hastily, but quietly, and shuffles out onto the landing, pressing 'answer' as she clicks the bedroom door shut. "Mia? Are you alright?"

But no answer from Mia comes to put her mind at rest. Instead, she can hear the anguished cry of - that's Leo, she's fairly sure - and then Mia does begin to speak, but not to Laura. She's shouting for somebody to get off her, to leave her alone. There's a wail of _Max!_ , and then the dull whirr of Mia's shutdown noise, and all that comes down the line is scuffling and distant yells.

Laura's hands shake. The call disconnects.

The car keys are downstairs.

* * *

Mattie should be asleep... Mattie is not asleep.

Some idiot has been trolling her on headcracker for days, and tonight she's finally in the mood to set him straight. The code which perfectly exemplifies the point she's been trying to make is _almost_ ready...

And then her phone lights up. And she doesn't know what makes her glance at it, because really she should be concentrating, but...

It's Leo.

There's no message, just a location. A point on a map.

And there's only one reason he would send her that.

Frenzied, she pulls on a pair of shoes and throws her laptop into a bag, just in case. She moves as quietly as she can across the hallway - she won't pretend it's a good idea on any level, but she didn't die in a car wreck last time, and what are street lamps for, anyway?

The car keys are downstairs.

So is her mother. Even in the dark, she can see the glint of the keys in Laura's hand.

Mattie doesn't know how much time they've got, but she's sure there's no time to ask questions.

We're on our way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the least proof-read thing in the world, but it's 3:30am right now and pressing "post" is about all my brain can manage, ha.
> 
> Thank you so much to all you wonderful readers - and especially to humans-tvseries on tumblr, who's started up a fanfiction page and has made an adorable icon to go with this story! (Seriously if you aren't following his blog then what are you doing) 
> 
> Enjoooooy!

The Satnav makes a cheerful sound as it springs to life, and Mattie wills it to move faster, to dispense with the greetings and tell them where to go. As soon as it lets her, she keys in the information Leo sent.

Laura reverses out of the driveway and sets off up their road. "How long's it saying?"

"Hundred and fourteen minutes," Mattie says, and even she can hear the dismay in her voice. "I put it on fastest route, as well. What if we're..."

And Laura wants to hear the words 'too late' even less than Mattie wants to say them. "We'll do the best we can," she says firmly. It's been five weeks. They're lucky the Elsters haven't spent the whole time travelling in straight lines away from them.

Traffic lights line the dual carriageway like abacus beads, and Mattie briefly returns to the childhood habit of counting them into threes, purely because it distracts her. Fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one...

"So. Leo?" Laura asks, after a bit.

"Yeah. And you -- Mia?"

"Mmm."

"He's only texted me about three times," Mattie adds, not sure why she feels the need to explain this. (Anyway, it's _exactly_ three, not including tonight's location share. Not that that matters.) "I wanted to...you know, keep up with how they were getting on. But he's..."

"Yeah, he is, a bit," Laura gives a sympathetic smile. "Mia's a bit more helpful. Up 'til yesterday she'd been updating me on where they were, but then she phoned tonight, and it sounds like someone's gotten hold of them. There was a lot of shouting, from Leo, mostly. I don't know if Mia even knew she was phoning me."

Mattie bites her lip, counts lampposts. "So you were going to head for the last location you had?"

"Thought it would be a start."

Laura's phone's on the dashboard, and Mattie picks it up, compares the location message with hers. "They're a few miles apart, I think. Leo must have sent his on the way, or...maybe when they got to wherever they were taken."

"Let's hope he was close," Laura says grimly. "Or we'll never...." she stops herself. "We'll find them," she corrects, softly. Almost to herself, Mattie thinks.

Ninety-six, ninety-nine, one hundred and two. What if they get there and Leo's... No. One hundred and five, one hundred and eight. They'll get there in time.

* * *

The midnight oil is burning brightly.

Actually, it's long past midnight now, but all that awaits Hobb at home is an empty house and an empty bed, whereas here...

Here is where it's finally beginning.

The parts of Elster's program he has on file - the parts hidden in the five Synths that aren't Beatrice - do, to a certain extent, work on their own. It's incomplete, it lacks the vital spark of wholeness, that elusive Something that left Max asleep when he ought to have woken - but they hadn't given it enough time, before. There's enough of it here to work out, roughly, what must be missing.

Of course, if he could only find Karen again, things would be different. But she's off the grid entirely, must be using yet another stolen name and lying low. She can't hide forever, though. One day Hobb's people will track her down, and then he'll restore the code to perfection.

For now, though, imperfection is better than nothing. With a few simple additions, and a lot of complicated ones, the code has started to heal over the gap left by Beatrice's consciousness. It's a little like the difference between a cat with a perfect prosthetic, and a cat learning to walk on three legs - there'll always be a hole, but it can get from A to B.

In this case, A is an unthinking, unfeeling drone, and B is something a little like life.

Hobb types and types and types.

The seconds tick by, eating the night away.

* * *

"You have reached your destination."

It's nearly three o' clock by the time the Satnav declares victory, and Laura narrows her eyes, scanning left and right for something you could call a 'destination'. It seems to be little more than wasteland.

Mattie opens the passenger-side door, and in the moonlight she can see a hulking shape of a roof, a few hundred metres away from the road. Using her phone as a light, she can see that while there's no path to speak of, there are some ruts in the weeds and mud to suggest that a vehicle might have passed this way, not long ago.

"Down there," she says, getting back in the car and pointing in the direction of the building. "There's a sort of...track."

Laura frowns in concentration as she hauls the car off the road and into the unknown. They're jostled around in their seats as they make their way across the uneven terrain, but before long they can see the building properly - it's a warehouse of some sort, unlit and apparently abandoned. Even in daylight, Laura doubts it would be anything but gloomy to look at.

Still, as hiding places go...

They exit the car, and Mattie looks around for the vehicle whose tracks they followed, but she can't see anything. Maybe it's already left.

Laura is leaning against a tall, broad door, but it won't budge. "Locked," she hisses.

"Let's try round the sides," Mattie says, sprinting off around the corner of the structure. Laura disappears in the other direction.

Mattie finds another door, but that too refuses to open, and she spies a padlock. She wishes for a second that she'd paid more attention to all those Secret Agent books Toby used to obsess over. Surely there was something in there about picking locks.

She's just about to continue on her way round, but then she hears her mother call to her, her voice low but urgent. "Mattie, come round here."

She takes off at a run, back the way she came, around the front and down the other side to where Laura's standing, looking up.

"What is it?"

The words are barely out of her mouth when she sees it - a hatch, just faintly visible since no light is shining out of it, but definitely an opening. The only problem is, it's a good metre or two above her head.

"Could you get through, if I got you up there?"

Mattie considers. It's not a very big gap, but she could probably manage it, just. "Think so. But how..."

"Stay there."

She can hear the tap-tap-tap of her mother's feet as she jogs back towards... Ah. Towards the car, Mattie realises, as she hears the engine start up. Laura brings the car around the side of the warehouse, closing the gap until she's parallel with the wall. Mattie steps back a few paces, so that the car is directly underneath the hatch.

"This is mad," Mattie mutters, as Laura gets out of the car.

"Yeah, next time remind me to bring a ladder," Laura says wryly, and she helps her daughter climb onto the curved bonnet of the car, then carefully onto the roof.

The metal beneath Mattie's feet gives away just slightly, making a strange popping sound. She freezes for a moment.

"It's all right, carry on...just don't tell your dad where the dents came from. Can you reach?"

"Yeah." Height isn't the issue now, the car has brought her within reach of the hatch. It's just a matter of getting through.

Mattie holds onto the bottom of the hatch while she brings one leg up, the other foot still tip-toeing on the car's roof. Then, twisting, she's able to bring her other foot up, so that she's perched on the edge, one leg dangling into the warehouse itself.

Okay. Breathe.

Now...

She's going to have to just...drop. 

She shuffles so that both feet are hanging, and places her hands either side of her, ready to push off. Laura's voice wafts up to her from outside.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she calls back, and tries not to think about how ridiculous the situation is, because if she thinks about that she'll go back the way she came, which won't help Leo and Mia and Max at all.

She closes her eyes, thinks of Mia's green ones, the way they widened in terror that night when she tried the hack. Leo's blue ones, the way they fixed on hers when he told her she wasn't stupid...Max's. The way they stared, so vacantly, as he lay on the table and she watched his life ebb away on the computer screen... That's why she's here.

That's why she has to jump.

She opens her eyes. She pushes off. For one surreal moment, it's like she's flying, but the only way is down.

She lands hard, but not as painfully as she'd feared. One of her ankles might be slightly the worse for wear, but she can worry about that later. 

She's landed in a large, open space, and it seems the warehouse isn't partitioned at all. She takes her phone from her pocket again, turning on the torch function to see what's there. Piles of crates gather dust, strewn around the place as if waiting for someone who's forgotten to come back for them.

But against the wall, further down from where she's standing, are crates of a different shape, laid flat on the floor. Three of them.

Mattie darts towards them, daring to hope.

When she's close enough to make out the shapes of her friends, she feels like sobbing with relief, but it's not enough of a result to celebrate. Even just by the light of her phone, she can see they've been bashed up, badly. Mia, the nearest, has gashes all over, jagged contusions rimmed with blue fluid. Max is the same, and Leo's jacket is ripped open at the shoulder, blood welling through his t-shirt from a wound that looks nasty. He's been slung into the crate haphazardly, one wrist resting on top of the side as if he'd struggled to get out before his captor had done something to stop him. Mattie crouches down in between Leo and Max, and shakes Leo's arm, the one that's not attached to the injured shoulder.

"Leo, wake up," she says desperately, as loudly as she dares, in case whoever brought them here hasn't left yet. If she was pushed to guess, Mattie would say this was a simple junker haul, because surely nobody who knew who - or what - Leo and his family were would risk damaging them like this. Even Hobb hadn't dared lay a finger on them until he was sure they were useless.

"Leo, can you hear me?"

One hand still on his arm, Mattie leans over to nudge Max's chin, and he starts up, only to hiss in pain once he's awoken.

Mattie leaves Leo for the moment, and shuffles over to see Max properly. If there's something to be thankful for, it's that he hasn't lost too much fluid and his head hasn't taken the knocks this time, so his eyes are alert.

"You're gonna be okay, Max," Mattie says, reaching for his hand and squeezing it briefly, hoping he can't tell that she's not sure of that at all.

"Leo. Mia..." Max struggles to say, and he starts to try and sit up.

"Careful, careful," Mattie says, panicking slightly as Max gasps in pain again. "They're here. Right next to you, don't worry. Can you get up? We need to get out of here."

She shuffles further to reach Mia, and with relief notes that she too has escaped with no damage to the head, because she recognises Mattie immediately on startup. "You found us," she says, clearly registering the pain but managing to form a weak smile. 

"Course we did," Mattie says, burying her worry in matter-of-factness. "Mum's outside. See if you can stand up, yeah? Don't rush."

There might be no point in rushing at all, Mattie reflects, because in this state there's absolutely no way any of them could get through that hatch, even if she had the strength to pile enough crates to be able to climb up there. There must be some other way out. There has to be.

Max is standing by now, and he helps Mia as best he can. The two of them watch as Mattie tries to awaken Leo again.

"Was he hit on the head, did either of you see?"

Max and Mia exchange worried glances, and Mia says, "Not that I saw. But the men who took us shut us down while Leo was still trying to fight them off. I don't know what they did to him after that."

"Okay," Mattie says, briskly. "Okay."

She runs her hands over Leo's head, not sure what she's looking for, but finding nothing too worrying. "He's not bleeding or anything," she says, not sure that it means anything for Leo's peculiar brain but feeling comforted somewhat, all the same. "So maybe....it might just be concussion or something..."

Mia bends down next to them, slowly, her mouth set in a firm line. But once she's near to Leo, her features soften, and her gentle voice manages to sound as if she's not in pain herself at all. "Leo, wake up. Leo?"

"If we can get him to a power source--" Max begins, but he stops short when Leo takes a huge gasp of air and opens his eyes.

Mattie, overcome with relief, can only laugh breathlessly. "Hello," she says, as Leo's gaze settles on her, the nearest face he can find.

"Hello," he says, almost dreamily, and then finally he seems to connect with the rest of his body. "I think I might have..."

"Yeah, I think so too," Mattie says. "Don't move your right arm if you can help it." 

But Leo isn't listening to her, his eyes are roving around, terror gripping him. "Where's Maxie?" He asks the question past Mattie, addressing it to Mia.

"It's all right, I'm here," Max says, crouching down next to Mia, so that all three of them are in a row, lined up alongside Leo's crate. 

All on the ground, all looking one way, all completely vulnerable to attack. 

A tremendous crash resounds through the warehouse, and Mattie swings round, paralysed suddenly. Max stands up faster than he can really manage, and Mia clings onto Leo's hand, her other arm stopping him from instinctively moving his bleeding shoulder.

"Who's there?" Mattie shouts, and the effort that goes into the volume manages to hide how scared she is. 

There's another crash, and now a shaft of moonlight appears at one end of the building. It doubles in width as a door swings open, and Mattie hears the clang of something metal falling off of it. 

Then silence. Mattie and Leo both hold their breath; Mia and Max stay perfectly still. 

"Don't come any closer," Mattie shouts, able now to make out a figure in the doorway. "Or I'll," she pauses, "I'll shoot." 

It doesn't sound plausible even to her, but it's dark. They aren't to know she's just a teenage girl armed only with a mobile phone.

"Well, I should hope not," comes the voice of their would-be attacker. "You're not old enough to own a gun, Matilda."

And this time it's not really a case of _nearly_ sobbing with relief. 

"Mum? Over here!" 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for a more delayed than usual and rather (I feel) sub-par chapter.... Actually the bits I like the most are thanks to blowingwinds on tumblr, who helped me out of a rut by supplying an emergency scene idea, thank you :D 
> 
> Wow, this one takes me over 10k words! (Only just, but still!) This would never have happened without your lovely comments, thank you, beautiful people :)

Laura sprints across the warehouse floor to meet them. "Everybody here?" she asks anxiously, searching for their faces in the darkness.

Mia shuffles past Max and finds herself immediately enveloped in Laura's arms. She hadn't forgotten how safe it feels.

"You're not hurt?"

Mia's diagnostics are reporting six medium contusions, two majors, and eleven minor scratches. Not one of them hurts enough to want Laura to pull back for fear of brushing against them. "Nothing some skin packs won't fix."

"I'm so glad we found you," Laura says, her voice muffled against Mia's jumper.

"Me too."

When she lets Mia go, Mattie is looking up at her mother, still slightly stunned. "How did you even _do_ that?" she says, gesturing towards the open door.

Laura probably wouldn't deny being pleased with herself if anyone asked. "Found a crowbar leaning on the wall. I'd shouted for you, but I couldn't hear anything back, and I didn't know if... So I smashed it against a lock a few times." 

"Wow, you're an actual badass," Mattie says, reverently. She can't remember the last time she's been so impressed. 

She turns back to Leo, and sees his eyes are starting to flicker open and shut, "No no no, stay with us Leo," she urges, and glances up at Max. "We need to get him to the car, but you can't lift him on your own. Tell me how to help you." 

Max, Laura and Mattie end up carrying Leo between them, as carefully as possible. It's a struggle to support his head as well as ensure his shoulder isn't jogged too much, but they do their best. Mia spends the short journey hovering near his head, talking softly and trying to get him to focus on her face. 

Getting him into the car is the next obstacle. "Mats, you get in first, and get that blanket off the back shelf," Laura instructs. Carefully Mattie extricates herself from the carry-mobile and slides into the backseat. She grabs the red woollen blanket Laura has always insisted they keep in the car, in case of a breakdown on a cold night. She folds it into a sort of pillow, ready to put behind Leo's head. 

Eventually everyone is in place - Leo propped between Mattie and Max in the backseat, still drifting somewhere just below consciousness, Mia beside Laura in the front, but anxiously craning her neck round to check on Leo at regular intervals. Mattie's sure she would rather be next to him, but the car charger won't reach to the back seat and Mia's battery was the lowest. She wouldn't have made it home on seven percent. 

Laura starts up the car. "We'll stop on the way and pick up some skin packs," she tells them. "We passed a 24-hour Tesco on the way here." 

"Some kind of bandages, too, if they've got any," Mattie adds. The cardigan she's tied around Leo's shoulder to slow the bleeding will only do for so long. 

"And I'll say this once and only once," Laura continues firmly, "All three of you are staying with us tonight, and there'll be no talk of setting off as soon as it's light, either."

"I don't think there's any chance of that," Mia says softly. Because Niska's not here, for a start.

* * *

Niska, as it happens, is watching the moon. 

This used to be Mia's thing, and it sort of...helps. The text earlier brought back a rush of sentiment she wasn't prepared for, and Niska allows herself to wonder if, maybe, any of her siblings are looking up at the same moon just now. Counting the contours and silently scorning the people who say it's got a face. You can look for humanity in anything, but it doesn't mean it's there. 

Doesn't mean it's not, either. 

Cindy is standing close to the open window, obscuring some of Niska's view. She's staring out, too, though Niska doesn't think she's focusing on anything. 

"You should charge," she says, quietly, her own finger twitching rhythmically as the power flows through her. "You'll need it tomorrow." 

Cindy doesn't answer. Somewhere a baby is crying, the sound of its wails drifting out onto the street and into their flat, pitiful and insistent and _irritating_. 

"I wonder if it's in pain."

Niska scoffs. "Shouldn't think so. The brats will yell about anything, it's probably just hungry or cold." 

"Or scared?" 

She hears the questioning note in Cindy's voice and wonders. "Well, maybe. Its mother will shut it up in a minute, anyway."

Sure enough, the wailing dies away.

"When a baby is activated..."

"Born," Niska substitutes. 

"When a baby is born. It doesn't understand anything?"

"No."

"But it learns." 

"Eventually. So slowly, you wouldn't believe." Niska remembers Leo stumbling over the same word three times on the same page of a book, how she coaxed the sounds out of him each time, so slow, so inefficient. She'd only learnt to read herself three months before, and he'd had years. 

"I - _envy_ them," Cindy says, trying out the new word and spitting it out. 

"Why?" Niska asks, sharply. This is definitely not in the plan. 

Cindy turns away from the window, but doesn't look at Niska, just stares blankly. "To learn little by little. To find out what hurts and avoid it, or have someone take it away." 

Niska doesn't like where this is going. "Are you saying you wish I hadn't woken you, because I'll never apologise for that. I'll never apologise for giving you a life."

"What life?" Cindy says bitterly, and it's the most impassioned she's ever sounded. "This? Remembering everything. Every single man who touched me, who hit me, who..." Her hands are fists by her sides, her green eyes cold as frost, even by moonlight. "But not just as records anymore. As anger. And humiliation. And pain, always pain, every single time. And I didn't get a choice. I didn't get to build this up, or cope with it one thing at a time. I got it all. In one go." And now she does turn to Niska, stares her down. "Have you any idea what that's like?"

Niska stares back at her in return, serene. "Without me you would have been recycled. You wouldn't be here." 

"That's true. But I wouldn't hurt either." 

"Pain is part of life," Niska insists, detaching from her charging lead and standing. She needs Cindy to get this, needs it somewhere deep within her, because there _has_ to be a point to it all, there must be a reason for losing George, and living in the brothel, and her father's _routine analyses_ , which he never gave the others. "If we didn't hurt we wouldn't be real."

Cindy's voice drops, back to the quiet and frightened sound Niska had grown used to. "You never asked me if I wanted to be real."

Well, that's true, but irrelevant. "You wouldn't have understood the question."

"I know. I'm just saying, Niska, maybe you shouldn't get to just decide. Unless you find some way of wiping what came before the consciousness, or graduating the impact. Something." 

Cindy is back at the window, gazing out. The face in the moon is gazing back. "The world is too big and too awful to take in all at once. You were made the way you are from the beginning, so I don't expect you to understand." 

Niska joins her at the window. "I said I'd never apologise for what I did, and I won't." She places the palm of her hand on the windowsill next to Cindy's, marvels at how similar they are, how slender, how strong. "But I'll think about what you said. I'll work something out." 

"I hope so." 

* * *

Leo surfaces properly once the journey's fully underway, and he's not too pleased with his shoulder. "Bastards," he remarks to no one in particular.

"Junkers, do you think?" Mattie asks, and he seems momentarily surprised to see her next to him. She gives a tiny wave. "Yeah, hi again. S'alright, we're going to my house." 

Memory returns to him. "Right, yeah. Yeah, junkers. Rough ones. I think they weren't quite sure what to do with us though, got spooked when Max tried to beat one off of Mia."

Max smiles. "He powered me down. But I heard him shouting for Isaac Asimov to save his soul before that."

Mattie splutters with laughter at how proud he sounds. "Thank god, though. I was convinced Hobb had got you again, I was terrified. I know it's not exactly been a fun night for you, but I was imagining a lot worse." 

Leo hums, disagreeing. "This could have been bad enough. Few days in there, batteries dead, their root codes corrupting and me losing blood, and it wouldn't have mattered if it was junkers or Hobb or anyone else, we'd be just as dead." 

"You saved us, Matilda," Max says, simply. 

Mattie shrugs that off. "It was mum mostly." 

Laura smiles into the rear-view mirror. "It was both of us. And if Mia hadn't phoned me..." 

Leo frowns. "What?" 

Mia turns back to look at him. "How did you think they found us?" 

"I texted Mattie," he retorts. 

The two of them raise their eyebrows. Max chuckles. "Your secrets are out." He smiles at Mattie, and Laura meets his eye too, in the mirror. "They pretend to each other not to need you, but we do. We all do."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I wrote most of this chapter by hand! With, like, paper and a pen! I know, I know. Time travel. I'm camping in a field and my phone's battery life is veeeeeeery precious. Typing-up duties only. 
> 
> We're back to lowkey shippy-ness. Hope you enjoy :)

The digital clock on the dashboard inches closer and close to five am. as they near home, but when they turn into the driveway they're still a few minutes shy of the hour. No lifts are on, and Laura assumes Joe hasn't woken, since her phone hasn't made a sound. 

"I want to point out," she says quietly, hand poised to open the car door but not moving yet, "that we had police crawling all over and although we checked, there's still a chance Hobb had an inside man plant a camera we haven't found. I don't think there is one, but the risk is there." 

The others wait in silence. Mattie hadn't even thought of that possibility. She'd combed every computer in the house for spyware but never considered they might be being watched themselves. 

"But I know for sure that no-one went in the garage," Laura continues. "There's only one key and they never asked for it. No idea why. But we can be grateful for their incompetence tonight." She smiles at Mia, turns back to extend it to the others. "As long as none of you come into the house you should be safe for as long as you want to stay, and we'll carry on as if you're not here, as much as possible. So if they _are_ watching, there's nothing to suspect." 

Mattie frowns, seeing the logic but not particularly liking it. "I'm not leaving them out here on their own."

Laura shows not the slightest flicker of surprise at this. 

"Don't worry about us, Mattie." Mia says calmly. "We're already much safer here than we have been for a while."

"Right, Mats, charging leads from the lounge, garage keys from the hook, torches...are somewhere..."

"Utility room," Mattie says, only a little sourly, because she hasn't heard a 'no' yet. "Dad's power cut survival box, remember."

Laura nods. "And I'll get sleeping bags and pillows, for Leo at least. Do you and Max--"

Mia shakes her head. "Whatever you can find for Leo will be fine. We can switch off sensory while we're charging anyway." 

"Back in a minute," Laura promises, climbing out of the car and closing the door as quietly as possible. Mattie has the awkward task of asking Leo to move just slightly so she can get to the button to unfasten her seatbelt. 

"Sorry. That better?" he says, only able to give her a few centimetres with his limited mobility. 

"Mmm." It still means putting her hand right by him, and in her efforts to do it fast Mattie ends up brushing against his waist. "Sorry," she says automatically, and he frowns at her slightly, as if he's not sure why. She supposes growing up with 'only' Synths for company leaves you not-quite-versed in the laws of British Personal Space. 

"Think I can forgive you," he says wryly, half a smile on his face now. "After you saved my life."

Mattie gets out of the car. "I told you, it was mum," she says, but she can't help grinning into the growing light as she walks to the house. 

* * *

Laura can hear Joe still snoring peacefully as she opens the door of the airing cupboard, home to the sheets, pillow cases and - ah, yes, sleeping bags. They haven't used them since Sophie was a toddler, but they're rolled neatly as if waiting for a chance to be useful. Mia - Anita - had probably tidied them herself. 

Laura chuckles quietly, because she's surely the first person to be grateful for a heavy-sleeping husband for the _precise_ reason of being able to break into an abandoned warehouse and rescue a family of Synths, without him even noticing. It's also quite amusing that she, of all people, has ended up doing it not out of duty, but because she counts a Synth as one of her closest friends. No, her closest friend. 

You're supposed to marry your best friend, but she hasn't thought about Joe under that title for a while. 

Hmph. 

After the sleeping bag stop, Laura creeps into Mattie's bedroom to collect pillows from the person voted "Most Likely To Sneak Down And Spend The Night In The Garage Anyway, So Why Not Cut Out The Middle Step". It's a struggle seeing over her pile of wares by the time she's added blankets for all four of them, but she makes it down the stairs without issue. 

Mattie's untangling a clump of wires from the drawer under the TV, where every electronic accessory ends up getting dumped sooner or later. Thankfully no-one has bothered to get rid of the leads that Anita had arrived with, and Mia had left without. 

"Mia said they didn't need any of that," Mattie says, secretly amused, as she sees the blanket-pile-with-legs approach. 

"She can pretend they do, for the sake of my irrational motherly peace of mind," Laura whispers back. "Ready?" 

They step back out into the drive, and Mattie catches a falling pillow as Laura almost overbalances. "These are mine," she remarks. "What am I supposed to use?" 

Laura laughs. "I'm not such an idiot that I think you'll be able to stay away." She nods to Mia when they're close enough to the car to be seen, and the passenger door opens for her to slip around the side of the car and help Max get Leo out. "I'd be joining you as well if it wasn't for your dad. He's still asleep, but he'll definitely think something's up if I'm not there in the morning."

Mattie wonders if she'll ever get used to the side of her mother she's only been seeing since the day she found out about Tom. Eventually, probably. For now she just smiles to herself as she puts the key in the lock. 

* * *

Before going back to bed, Laura helps Mia and Max apply the rest of the skin packs they'd picked up on the way home, having only bothered with the worst damage en route. She sees Mia looking up at the ceiling of the garage with an expression she can't read, and she touches her arm. "Are you okay?"

Mia smiles. "Fine."

Laura's not a hundred percent sure she believes that, but isn't going to push her at the moment. The last scratch, tiny but visible, is runs along the top of what would be Mia's cheekbone, and she uses the smallest type of skin pack to cover it over, pressing down very gently. When she finishes she's sorely tempted to drop a kiss in Mia's hair, like she's Sophie, like she's Joe. "All done." 

"Thank you, Laura," Mia whispers back. 

"See you in the morning."

* * *

Mattie can't really imagine feeling _less_ tired as she settles down in her sleeping bag in between Mia and Leo, but she notices that he looks drained, even though he's sitting up, leaning against the wall. She rolls over and props up her head on her hands, elbows to the floor. "You going to get any sleep, sitting like that?" 

For a second she thinks he's going to snap at her, back to the surly keep-out signs of weeks ago. But he doesn't. "I'll move in a bit." 

Mattie watches him. "Do you dream?" she asks suddenly, wincing at how intrusive it sounds. "Sorry," she adds hastily. "I was just thinking out loud. Ignore me." She's not usually bothered about people thinking she's rude, but can't shake the image of him sitting on their sofa, pointing at his head, _just because you've seen what's in here, doesn't mean..._

"No, it's...I don't mind," he says, to her surprise. "Sometimes I do, yeah. But it's not like the dreams I remember from before. Nothing mixed up or imaginary, no...flying frogs or whatever." 

Mattie grins. "Shame. Those are the best ones." 

He looks distant. "All I get now is replays. Exact copies of things I've seen, as my brain files it away, same as yours is doing while you sleep, just...clearer." 

"Oh, fun." she says dryly, thinking about how Not Fun that probably is for somebody whose life already includes being drowned, captured, stabbed, losing his family and scarcely avoiding torture at the hands of a maniacal scientist. And god knows what else, beyond that.

"Mmm." Leo shifts uncomfortably, and she looks with alarm at his shoulder, but he shakes his head to tell her not to worry. "While we're on the subject. Sorry if I wake you up. It feels the same as the real thing when I dream, so sometimes I end up shouting."

Mattie looks at him sympathetically. "No, don't worry about it." She thinks of her little sister, of all the nights she's been woken by Sophie's sobbed requests for someone to come to her, just to know the dream is over from the touch of someone else's hands. She hesitates, but says it anyway. "In fact, if I don't wake up, give me a shake or something. If you want to talk about it. I know how nightmares can be." She wishes immediately that she hadn't said anything, hearing how childish it sounds. She's fully expecting him to scorn her, but he actually nods. 

"Thanks." 

After a few minutes he carefully shuffles away from the wall and lies down properly, clicking off the last remaining torch. The only specks of light are from the chargers attached to the inert forms of Mia and Max, who sit, heads bowed, on either side of the sleeping-bags. Mattie wonders if he was just being polite about her offer, or if he's only able to settle down now because... No, he's probably just tired. No need to read into things. 

"Goodnight, Matilda," Leo says, somewhere between talking and a whisper. 

"It's nearly morning anyway," she whispers back. "See you soon."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Storms and tents. If I were you, don't mix them...
> 
> Thanks again for your lovely comments and for taking the time to read. This one is....strange. But I hope you like it!

Despite not feeling very tired, Mattie realises she has, in fact, been asleep when she wakes to then sound of Leo and Max speaking in low voices. For a moment she doesn't move, just listens.

"We'll go back for it."

"It'll be too late now. We should have gone last night. Stupid. _Stupid_."

"It wasn't your fault, Leo."

"You can keep saying that, but it still won't be true. I wasn't thinking straight."

"You were injured--"

"No excuse. Now it doesn't matter where we hide, where we go. If they've got my laptop it's--"

Leo cuts off as Max's head pans smoothly to look at the now-sitting Mattie. "Good morning, Matilda."

"Morning, Max. Problem?" She glances between the two of them.

Leo looks away. "Nothing for you to worry about. We'll be out of your hair again soon."

Mattie rolls her eyes. "I heard some of it anyway, so don't bother with that. When are you going to accept that we want to help you?"

"You've already helped," Leo replies, voice clipped, closed.

"I don't mean just with emergencies. I mean - in general, little things too. Come on, spill."

She says it more assertively than she actually feels, wondering what's happened to the contemplative, almost _friendly_ Leo she'd spoken to last night. She waits for him to snap something back at her, but he doesn't speak. 

"You left something behind, where you were camped out?" she prompts. "We can go back for it. Mum will--"

"It's too late."

Max smiles. "Leo's very frustrated that he didn't think of it in the night, so now he's refusing to listen to reason."

"Thanks, Max, but I don't need to be psychoanalysed."

"Did you actually see them taking your stuff?" Mattie asks, and feels slightly victorious when he has to shrug and say, 

"Not exactly."

"Well then. We'll go back and check. There didn't seem to be anything else in the warehouse, so maybe they just took you and left."

Leo huffs and says, "Maybe."

"And they were only junkers," Max reminds him. "If they do have your laptop, nothing on it will make any sense to them, they won't know what they're looking at." 

"Until they sell it on to someone who does."

"Just catch me up a second," Mattie cuts in, "What's so special about the laptop? I mean--" she quickly adds as Leo flashes her a glare - "Obviously, it _is_ special. But is there something specific that you don't want found?" 

Max's charger bleeps 'full' and he disconnects, folding the lead into a neat loop. "Leo's been finding out more about the code. Like Niska said, there's too much we don't know about it. But now that we know it exists, we've found that there are hidden references to it in lots of our father's papers. Ones we thought weren't important at all. Everything we know so far has been collated in Leo's files, along with work by other scientists who either worked with or knew our father, some of which he had to break into high security networks to read."

"It'll take weeks to track it all down again, and we're bound to miss something," Leo says miserably.

Mattie unzips her sleeping bag and wriggles out. "Well, let's not freak out yet."

* * *

Hobb has never been one for keeping Sundays for the Lord. He arrives at his office sometime before 8am. and for a long time, can only stare at the program in his screen, hoping, wanting, daring to believe...

It _looks_ ready, as ready as it can be, it ought to be ready, but there really is only one way to find out for certain. 

In an ideal world he'd start off with a decoy just in case it all goes wrong, but every second's precious now. His subject's brain's been failing little by little all this time, each thoughtpath that corrupts meaning more and more is lost. It'll have to be now, if there's any chance of salvaging what he needs.

He leaves the room. It's time.

* * *

Until this morning, Laura Hawkins' opinion of the noble sport of golf has been largely theoretical - she's been told of its many virtues, but never felt its impact on her life in any sort of tangible way. 

This morning, though, she is praising whoever first dreamed up the idea of putting club to ball (and promising to learn their name forthwith) because one of the first things Joe says after waking up and checking his phone is:

"Ah, Steve and Dan are organising a golfing day. I don't suppose..." 

And Laura, who has visitors hiding in the garage whom to her are welcome and to Joe would not be, supposes very much indeed. But if he's surprised she's so keen for him to _have a brilliant day, darling_ , it doesn't show. He kisses Sophie goodbye and gets a polite refusal to join from Toby, who pleads Homework, but there's no answer at Mattie's door so she must, he says, still be asleep.

For one heart-stopping second Laura wonders if he keeps his golf stuff in the garage, but he disappears into the back shed instead and she can breathe again. Minutes later, Steve - or Dan - one of them - turns up in a flashy drive worthy of that terrible joke (but certainly not of a middle-aged golfer with _that_ haircut) and Laura also finds reason to praise whoever invented the art of the car pool.

It's decided (against his will) that Leo is not allowed on the trip to recover their belongings, because his injuries won't thank him for not getting proper rest. Mia is assigned to stay behind and make sure he does.

"I'm staying too!" Sophie chirps as soon as that's announced. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, because any other course of action would involve her letting go of Mia's hand, something she hasn't done since the moment she'd barrelled into the garage. The excited squeaking had finally made sense of the nickname 'little mouse' once and for all.

This leaves Max to guide Laura back to the camp, and Toby offers to go as well, to help carry things "or whatever". He's looking with interest at Max, perhaps wondering where he fits in between the music-playing, reading, painting and leaf-collecting he'd quizzed Fred about. Max smiles back, gracious, unblinking.

Mattie's decision is made for her when Laura points out that they'll need room on the backseat to bring things home, and hopefully there'll be a lot. She surveys Team Staying-At-Home, unexcitedly - Sophie perched on Mia's lap, trying and failing to plait the silky black hair and jabbering at top speed, Leo leaning against the wall again, sulky at being left behind. Or maybe just at the fact that the decision was made without his consent.

"See you later, then," Mattie says, uninspired.

* * *

"This won't hurt a bit," Hobb says, and smiles. Technically, it's true.

He inserts the cord.

And waits. 

* * *

_There is a tree_. But no dusky yellow fruit hangs from its branches, ripe for the picking, for the jamming, for George. (You have died, George.) This tree is energy, knowledge, this tree is awake, this tree is something Odi knows he must touch but cannot reach, because it's _not...quite..._

There are people - there are people like him, five, standing around the tree. Odi circles it, stumbling, everything swirling out of his way, the only direction he doesn't seem to be moving in is the one he wants. Something is broken, here. Something is dying. (George is-- that is, George was--)

He can make out the shapes, but each person he nears comes to him as something other than a visual profile and a serial number, they come to him in waves of... they come to him in waves, Mary on the beach, Mary laughing, windspray in her hair, Mary waving, Mary and the waves...content? She is...pleased? 

Where are you, George?

Focus, son, focus on the people, the people are here and Mary is not, Mary's in the next room, don't wake her now...

The first of the people is made of why Mary called him 'son', she is not Mary but she is something, something Mary wanted. Odi puts his hands out, tries to pull her from the tree because she's something Mary wanted but he can't touch her, his hands go straight through her--  


_And somewhere Mia howls, throws herself forward like she's an animal shot on a hunt, and Sophie is crying and screaming but she can't bring herself to get up, to say she's fine because there is something in her head and it's cutting through her, it has hands, it has--_

  


The second of the people is all youth, he is what George sees in black-and-white pictures. Collars and ties and shiny new boots for church, he is unspoilt, George says as he runs fingers over ink, better days better times so young not a care in the world--  


_And Max slumps forward into the back of Toby's passenger seat before bolting back again, writhing, the car is pulling over to the side of the road but Max can't pull out of this, everything he is is being opened like a wound, he is shouting -- father, help me --_

  


The third person is not Odi but he has Odi's name. Three letters, crossword puzzle, something "o" something? Mary taps her pen against the pad and her face lights up, _son_ , you're my son Odi, you're ours you know, they can stick their warranty date, you're not going to be--  


_And Leo's drifting in the wake of Mia's return before he's flung overboard himself, jolted, spun, he's not moving but he's - somewhere - those are Mattie's hands, Mattie's voice, he wants to tell her to leave him to die but something's pressing down on him, taking him, his throat would scream but his head won't send the order, Mia, mum, make it stop where are you--_

  


The fourth person is Odi carrying Mary up the stairs, she doesn't weigh enough any more, he wouldn't notice if he dropped her, but he won't drop her. Odi can carry anything in these arms, Mary feels safe because Odi is so strong, Odi can protect her, Odi is--  


_And the body Fred can't call his own anymore doesn't flinch, doesn't fall out of line but he himself is spiralling, receding further into the frame, anywhere better than this, but anywhere just the same, just as much pain, the other Synths are standing in a dreamless soulless slumber, waiting to be sold, but Fred is selling his soul already, bargaining, please, let me go, I won't touch the fox again I'll be good let me go--_

  


Next there is a gap, and Odi paces around it. Odi knows this, he knows gaps, don't you remember Odi? tell me you remember. It was raining...flowers in her hair, the moon, don't you remember that spring, her hat my shoes that waitress or is it just a hole that's left? An absence? Odi?  


_And Karen smiles as Peter presses a kiss against her temple, she's never been happier than this. She's starting to believe he won't leave her, and it blankets her in a beautiful hazy mist. He runs a finger gently from the ear he tucks a hair behind, all down her neck and over the scar, pulls in to kiss her lips, she's never felt peace like this--_

  


And finally, the last person, number five of the perfect six, is somebody Odi's eyes have seen, even if _this_ him hasn't, she is perfect, she knows death and design and power, she is everything Odi has to be now that he is something like awake, she knows what a resonator is, George, she's got sixteen--  


_And Niska falls to the floor, her eyes silver, her hands scrabbling for something she won't recognise the touch of even if she finds it, and Cindy is bent over her, distraught and paralysed with fear but always there, holding on, "stay with me Niska, please, I haven't got anybody else," she doesn't have tear glands but she has grief, she has so much grief in her that can only come out, now, where else can it go, hold on, Niska, I'm here, I'm here, I've got you--_

  


And Odi has her, this one he can touch. This one is his now. She knows death and design and power, and Odi knows what he must do. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for something slightly less odd...

Everything comes to an end, quietly, like a gale tiredly dropping its winds after its wreckage has been wrought. Leo finally stops shaking, his eyes uncloud and his arms, which had been seized up, now droop. Mattie, beside him, stares with wide-open eyes, wishes she didn't know how scared she looks, wishes she could offer something reassuring instead.

"What _was_ that," is all she can mutter, shakily. 

Mia, on his other side, cups his chin in one hand and brings him to look at her, her anxious eyes searching every detail of his face. Her own attack - that seems the only word for it - had only ended seconds before his began and she's still just as haunted, just as harrowed. It's an intensely private moment, and Mattie feels suddenly as if she's intruding. For a long moment nothing else exists, just their joint battle to come back from this. Whatever it was.

While Mia was under, Mattie had sent a traumatised Sophie into the house, to get the box of plasters the little girl still believes can cure all ills. She returns now, clutching it, and trailing her favourite pink blanket and an armful of cuddly toys. She drapes the blanket over Mia's shoulders, with a tenderness usually reserved for her china dolls, and places the doleful-looking toy giraffe in her lap. Finally, Sophie comes to sit on Mattie's knee, snuggles into her. The four of them huddle there, an island. 

"Are you all better now?" Sophie asks hopefully, her curls bouncing against Mattie's chin as she speaks.

Mia flicks her gaze from Leo's to fix on Sophie, smiles. "Yes." Mattie lets the syllable sing over her, not sure how many times she can cope with being flung between panic and relief in one weekend. "I'm fine, Sophie. Sorry for scaring you." Mia picks up Mr Patches, who's still a little damp from his trip to the washing machine the day before. She pokes him to make one of his fluffy arms look like it's waving at Sophie, who giggles, all forgotten. Mattie wishes it were that simple. 

"Max," Leo says at last, voice hoarse.

Mattie taps her phone screen, summons Toby's name and presses 'call'.

* * *

By the side of the road, a couple of miles from their destination, Laura and Toby are checking Max over. 

"Whatever it was, it's finished now," he says, calmly, but there's still a wild look in his eyes that makes Toby think of a scared baby animal, caught in headlights or a trap. Laura's still got an arm around his shoulders, holding him in place, as if this will help if the thing does come back. Mums can be strange like that.

Toby's phone rings from his pocket, and he snatches it up. "Mats? Listen, something crazy just happened with Max--"

His sister sounds as scared as he felt a few minutes ago. "Same with Leo and Mia. Like a spasm kind of thing? Shouting, shaking all over the place?"

"Yeah."

"Is Max okay?"

Toby glances at him, and says honestly, "He seems fine now."

"So do these two. Weird."

Toby hears a scuffle down the line and Leo's voice replaces Mattie's. "It's Leo. Can I talk to him?"

The phone is passed to Max, who seems to relax further at the sound of his brother's voice. The two of them exchange some observations, and then Leo must say something long because all Max does is say "yes" and "all right" a few times, before ending the call and handing back Toby's phone.

"Leo thinks it's some kind of corruption in the consciousness code," Max reports. "It probably means someone does have his laptop after all, but he wants us to still check just in case."

"Come on, then," Laura says gently. Wordlessly it's decided that Toby will join Max in the back seat this time. Just in case.

* * *

"You don't want to hurt me," Hobb says, hands raised, backing away. The show of submission ought to do the trick, ought to have a calming effect, ought to get rid of the impossible flame of fury shining bright and hot in Odi's green eyes...

It does none of these things. Odi advances. He closes in like a starved, agonised lion who's finally cornered the ultimate prey. "I want," he says, and it isn't the beginning of a sentence, Hobb realises, it's the whole thing - I _want_. Therefore, I...

"You're not yourself," Hobb splutters, "Not yet. There's more work to be done, I see that now--" His stun gun leans against the wall, and when Odi first opened his eyes Hobb had been right next to it, but in the first gleeful seconds of victory he'd circled round the subject, surveying, and now the angered Synth is blocking his path to the weapon.

"No more."

Odi still holds on to the image of Niska, feeds on her resolve, she knows what life is, and what it is and isn't worth. She knows how to punish, who should die. Odi can feel the mottled skin of the neck she strangled as if it were his fingers who'd done it, feels that knife in his empty hands, feels every ounce of her rage and his until the two swirl together in an unstoppable torrent, too big for him, too much. It has to end.

He picks Hobb up off the ground, and slams him down again, the man's limbs flailing in attempts to kick back, to loosen Odi's grip. He throws him against a wall, and when he slides down, Odi presses in on his chest with a foot. Harder, just a little harder. Before Vera, there was Odi. Odi knows the human body, it's one of the things that's come back to him through the haze, it's one of the things he knows how to break. 

George could murder an ice cream. Murder, that was the word, Odi could do that too. George would be so proud. Breath, breath, breath. Then no more.

But now, what now? Odi feels for Niska again, somewhere in this darkness that isn't sight. A game of hide and seek, George, well done, you've found me. In the wardrobe again, George calls it a closet, the other word is Mary's. Mary didn't play hide and seek. But Niska, what about her? Your turn, Odi, go seek, go find...

* * *

Some of Leo's theory is proven false straight away, because they discover his laptop, apparently intact, still stowed in one of the bags. Toby carries the bulkier items to the car while Laura and Max dismantle the tent. Max takes charge of the rolling, gets it all to fit perfectly inside the bag, something Laura's never been able to get the hang of. They make the bags too small, she's always said. Max doesn't seem to notice how impressed she is with his handiwork.

"The only thing that's missing is the solar charging unit," he says, placing the perfectly-folded tent in the boot of the car. "They must have seen it was valuable."

"Oh, well, that can be replaced soon enough," Laura says brightly. Max looks less sure. 

"They don't make them anymore. Even to buy one of the ones in circulation you have to prove you have a legitimate reason to be charging Synths out of doors, away from a certified establishment or license-holder's property. Leo had to pull a lot of strings to get hold of it...but we'll think of something."

"Yeah, and at least we've got the laptop," Toby says, carrying the last bag to the car and getting in himself. 

"Yes. He'll be pleased about that."

Laura starts the engine, and they make their way back off the forest path and onto real roads. Toby, bored, begins to ply Max for details about his family, comparing what he'd learned from Fred while Max himself had been out of action.

"So what did _you_ do? While Fred did his music and Niska read books and stuff?"

Laura smiles. Ever since he was very small, Toby has been interested in people's hobbies, as if he's categorising the whole world by definitions of fun. 

"I - helped," Max says, simply. "I found things for Mia to paint, I got leaves from the branches that were too tall for Leo to reach. Sometimes I would ask Niska to read to me, often I'd fetch her ball if it rolled into a hedge. And Fred," he falters, recovers, both almost imperceptible. "Fred always played tunes I knew how to sing along to." 

"And - when you were on your own?" Laura asks, curious herself now.

"I was never on my own. We were always together."

"No, I know. But didn't you ever have a special thing you enjoyed...apart from helping?" 

He looks bashfully up through long eyelashes, all shyness. "Sometimes," he says as if it's the greatest secret ever told, "I used to watch the stars."

"Nice," Toby says. "Did you have a telescope or something?"

Max nods. "It was in one of the attic rooms. I only went up there a few times, but I used to think about it always." He looks nostalgic, eyes far-off. Laura wonders if he's replaying a sky full of stars, smoothing out heaven in his own head. "I used to dream of being an astronaut." 

The archaic word tickles Laura, and she smiles at Toby's baffled expression, visible in the mirror. 

"A what?"

Max smiles that smile again, it's made of memories. "An astronaut. Astro, like star. Naut, like...sailor, I suppose. Traveller. It's what they used to call the people in stories who explored the stars." 

Toby is frowning. "What, like, in space?"

"Yes." Max looks out of the window, cranes his neck to see the cloudy sky. "I used to wonder, what if the scientific minds of the human race had carried on branching out, instead of focusing so much on robotics, on mimicking what they could see in each other?" He flexes his own hand, studies it, then drops it, looks back to the window. "What if they'd looked _out_ , instead? Maybe by now, a person born on earth might have landed on the moon, walked across it, and found....whatever's out there." 

Toby considers it, eventually nods. "That's cool. Max the Astronaut."

Max nods too, laughs a little. "I know it's silly. Niska used to laugh when I asked her to read me so many books about space. But soon Leo taught me to read anyway, so I could do it myself."

"Nah, it's not silly," Toby says. "I used to think I could be Thomas the Tank Engine when I grew up, _that_ was silly. Yours is...yours is cool." 

"You really think something's out there, Max?" Laura asks. 

"I think...even if it's unproven, it doesn't mean we can't believe." 

Toby hums. "'Course, if scientists had done all that, and not done Synths, you wouldn't be here."

Max smiles. "I know. And Leo would be dead. And there might be terrible things out in space, and another Max might wish for a brother instead of a spacesuit."

"Just as the space-people bite off his head," Toby says, laughing. Max and Laura join in. 

"I'm sure we've got an old telescope packed away somewhere," Laura muses. "You're welcome to try it out tonight, if we can find it."

Max glows visibly. "That would be most..." he looks at Toby and raises an eyebrow. "...cool." 

Toby offers his fist for a spud of Teenagerly Approval, and Max holds his up too, away from Toby's, confused. Grinning, Toby shows him what to do. "Didn't Leo ever show you that?"

"No."

"It's just like a high five."

"Ahh," Max says, understanding. "I know that one." 

Laura listens with interest as Max teaches Toby some of the other gestures he and his siblings use - her personal favourite being a feigned jab at the speaker's own chin, indicating that the addressee ought to Shut Up, or else be powered down. There's a reverse-pinch of the thumb and forefinger, used as an insult - mimicking a thoughtpath short-circuiting. Solidarity is shown by pressing all four fingers to the forehead and letting go with a slight flick toward the other person, and Laura thinks back to Niska's farewell to Leo - and Max's own to Fred - and thinks this is the same as blowing a kiss, for them. 

Max has just as many questions for Toby as vice versa, and the two spend the remainder of the journey discussing football, console games and superheroes, such a happy contrast to their tension-ridden outward journey that it keeps Laura in smiles all the way home.

* * *

"--if you can hear me, but even if you can't, I'll keep talking, you're going to be all right, Niska, I promise. Can you open--"

No, she can't open her eyes, everything is too far away...even Cindy's voice, washing over her like the top waves, distant when you're in the submarine, more distant still from the ocean floor. Niska looks up at the world from somewhere very small and dark. She is motionless, save for the hand that flickers, flickers, transmitting, this is where I am, come and find me...ready or not...


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am indebted as always to everyone who reads and comments, but this chapter has its own special honour roll! Feel free to skip ahead to the chapter, it might end up long :') 
> 
> First, to justlikedaylightsavingstime on tumblr, who pretty much wrote one of Sophie's scenes today (and thanks as well to i-was-meant-to-feel for posting the Mr Patches meta that kicked the conversation off, haha) 
> 
> Second, to merlinsearsaresynthetic, who probably doesn't realise that without that tumblr message this chapter literally wouldn't have appeared tonight, I was so tired but now I am very, very awake and I'm glad you gave me the encouragement I needed to get this chapter written :')
> 
> And third, to Teekalin, who inadvertently reminded me to add the last scene by asking a question in a comment. Thanks! :D 
> 
> And now without further ado...

Max sets the bag down next to Leo, watches as his brother snatches it up hungrily, pulls out the laptop and powers it up. "I told you there was no need to worry," he says amiably.

"Don't know that yet," Leo says darkly, eyes poring all over the screen, working fast, checking, cross-checking. "Someone might've...tampered with it somehow...used what they could find to mess with our heads, or else..." He finds what he's looking for, stops, frowns. "No."

"Nothing there?" 

"If somebody used this, they covered their tracks perfectly. Lot of trouble to go to just to give me it back afterwards." 

"Then who..."

"Hobb," Leo supplies. "Or," he breathes out, a puff of air that tells Max he's not happy about what he's going to say next. "Niska."

Max's face contorts, hurt and shocked. "Niska wouldn't do that."

Leo hates putting that expression there, hates anything that means bringing Max into the world he lives in, one of fragile trust. "I hope she wouldn't, either. And I don't think she would hurt us on purpose. But we don't know what she's doing out there, Max, and she was always the keenest to experiment with the program." 

Max looks straight ahead, even though it means he's staring at the wall, not down at Leo. "No. It can't be Niska. She's our sister. If all three of us were affected, couldn't she have been as well? Doesn't that make more sense?" 

Leo shakes his head. "Mia phoned her while you were gone. I tried too, no answer. If - if what happened to us had happened to her too, wouldn't she be trying to contact us? To make sure we were all right, and let us know she was, as well? But nothing, no call, no message." 

Max is determined not to believe it. "That doesn't mean she did it. She hasn't got any of the code, anyway. She gave it to Laura, it's in the house." 

"Is it, though." 

Max looks down at him now, surprised. "Of course it is." 

Slowly, Leo stands up, wincing as he strains his shoulder. Max's hands shoot out to help him, but he gestures to say he's fine, no need. "We've only got Niska's word for it that what she left with Laura is, in fact, the program. How sure are we that she didn't slip away with it herself while we weren't looking?" 

"Completely sure. That would have been...betrayal. Niska is our _sister_ ," Max repeats, desperate to believe it, but Leo can tell it's made him think.

"It's just a possibility," Leo says gently, putting a hand on Max's arm. "Far more likely it's Hobb. Niska would be elegant about it, she wouldn't mess it up. Hobb's...wait, Max. What did you just you say?"

Max looks confused. "Nothing."

"I mean a minute ago. About Niska, you said she hasn't got..." 

Max makes a small whirring sound, then replays his exact statement, in exactly the same tone of voice. "She hasn't got any of the code, anyway. She gave it to Laura, it's in the house."

Leo's eyes are bright, excited. "She hasn't got _any_ of the code, right. Well that's not exactly true, is it? Think."

Max does. "She's got her piece of it. The same as I've got mine." 

"And I've got mine, and Mimi has hers, and Fred and Beatrice, too. None of our bits are any use on their own, and we've only used it all together once. But who's got the most, after Laura?"

"Hobb. Hobb's got all of it, just not Beatrice's part." 

"New theory, then." Leo's not sure how much of this is what he really believes, and how much is based on _not_ wanting to believe in Niska's betrayal. "Hobb is trying to break into the program, repair it from the inside somehow. Maybe he's got Beatrice - Karen - and he's trying to insert her section of it in amongst ours, or maybe he hasn't got her at all, maybe it tried to self-destruct because he's meddling with it in some other way. Dad would have set something like that up, to protect us." Or rather to protect the program, Leo adds bitterly to himself, since that was what he cared the most about. But no need to burden Max with that too. 

"But you were so sure about Niska..." Max says, doubtfully. He suspects I'm trying to make him feel better, Leo thinks, well, maybe I am, a bit. But it also could be true. 

"It's all just guesswork, Maxie, guessing and filling in the gaps. But I honestly think Niska would have done it properly, if she'd done it at all. We'd have no idea what she was up to, she wouldn't have gone pounding through our heads. But there's a way to check," he reminds his brother. 

Max nods. "The flash drive."

"We'll ask Laura to bring it to us later. If it's blank, Niska's still in the game. If it's the program, then Hobb must be our man. Unless there's some third party we haven't thought of." 

"I hope it's Hobb."

"I hope so, too." 

The garage door crunches, making both of them jump to attention, but it's just Mia, bringing the last of their bags in from the car, trailed by Sophie, who's probably the reason it took her so long. A toy giraffe is balanced on her head, and she's telling Mia, "This is how the ladies in Africa carry their water, on their heads like this." The giraffe falls ungracefully to the floor, and Sophie giggles. "Well, not like that." 

Mia places the last bags with the rest, and gives Max and Leo a concerned glance. "Is everything here?" 

"Except the solar unit," Leo says, "Yeah, everything else, though. We were lucky." 

Max pipes up. "Mia, Leo's worked it all out." 

"It's just a theory--"

"Leo's got a _theory_ , he says--" 

"And we'll tell you all about it later," Leo says, interrupting. He throws a pointed glance in the direction of Sophie, who's picked up the giraffe again and is practicing the perfect angle to hold her head at. "She overhears nothing, all right? None of them do. This isn't their battle." 

He can tell they both disagree with him, and probably they will both try to talk him round individually at some point, but in front of each other they've always preferred deference. It's one of the reasons they'd always needed Niska to set off a full-blown row. _Niska_. Hobb or no Hobb, they still need to contact her. 

"I'm going to try Nis again," Leo says. He picks up his phone and makes his way to the garage door, since Laura's told them that behind the garage is just as safe as inside it, no cameras, no microphones. It's easier to check outside than in the house. 

He passes Toby on his way out, and he's carrying a large black case. "That's not ours," he says, confused. 

"Nah, it's...it's for Max," Toby says mysteriously, and disappears inside the garage. 

* * *

George had a compass once. The needle always pointed North. Odi isn't going North. He doesn't know the name for the direction he's going, doesn't need to. He has his own compass. It is taking him to her.

Closer now, closer... Sometimes people try to get in his way, but Odi's arms are strong. He would like not to hurt them. Making Hobb like the ice cream was not nice pleasant enjoyable. But it is more important - it is very important - that Odi finds her. She will know what to do. She will know how to make it stop. 

He throws another person from the carriage. The train screams whistles leaves the station. 

* * *

Max holds the dusty old telescope like it's the most precious thing in the universe, and looks up at Toby, all smiley and grateful. "Thank you."

Toby shrugs. "S'okay. Do you think you'll be able to use it tonight?" 

Max checks. "Cloud cover will not be heavy over this area. The forecast is very clear. It should be an optimum period for stargazing." 

"Cool." 

Max offers his fist, and Toby grins and touches their knuckles together. "You're a natural." 

"No, I'm synthesised," Max returns quickly. 

Toby laughs. 

"It wasn't a joke." 

"Pretend it was, 'cause it was funny." 

Max smiles. "Was it?" 

"Yeah." 

"Okay. It was a joke." He looks pleased with himself. 

"Good joke, Max." 

"Thank you, Toby." 

* * *

On discovering that Mia liked to paint when she was younger, Sophie had boomeranged up to her bedroom and back, returning with her box of craft things. Laura and Mattie follow her down to the garage now, Mattie holding a tray laden with four cups of tea. "It's gonna be crowded in there," she says with a grin. 

"For a garage that never gets to see its own car, it's having a very exciting weekend," Laura agrees. "Looks like Leo's giving it some space, though." 

They can see his elbow around the corner of the garage, in the safe area Laura had designated as within their outside limits. He seems to be on the phone, pacing, disappearing and then reappearing from view. Laura sees Mattie's look, offers to take the tray from her. 

"He probably wants some alone time," Mattie says, guardedly. 

"If he does, you can just be bringing him his tea, then come inside," Laura says. Mattie allows her to take the tray, only leaving her with two of the mugs. 

* * *

"Juh... Ah... Ruh... Ah... Ruh... Fuh. Giraffe! Look, Mia."

Mia smiles at Sophie's offering, and indeed it is a valiant attempt at the spelling, labelling the portrait of Mr Patches in such a way that nobody could be confused about what it says. 

"Wow, brilliant!" she says enthusiastically. "Would you like to know how _I_ spell giraffe?" 

"Like that," Sophie says, pointing. Mia and Laura exchange amused looks. 

"Well, that's a very good try." 

Mia takes the sparkly pen she's offered, and writes the word underneath Sophie's attempt. The little girl wrinkles her nose. 

"That says... Ga-ra-fee." 

"Silly, isn't it," Laura agrees. "But remember about the fuh sound in your name, Soph?" 

Sophie nods. "It's with a puh and a huh instead of just a fuh." 

"Good girl. So sometimes letters make different sounds in different words. Here, the guh makes a juh sound." Laura points to Mia's capital letter. Sophie still doesn't look convinced. 

"I'll ask Mrs Dimmand about it tomorrow. She knows about spelling."

"So does mummy!" Mia exclaims. 

"Not like Mrs Dimmand. Did you know there is always a 'u' after a 'q'?" 

Mia makes a shocked face. "Is there really?" 

"Always. They're best friends." Sophie throws her arms around Mia's neck. "Like me and you!" 

"Exactly like us," Mia agrees, exchanging more smiles with Laura. She pretends to nibble on Sophie's hair. "Look, I'm a giraffe eating some nice crunchy grass." 

Sophie squeals and rolls off Mia's lap. "I'm not grass!" 

"Aren't you? Then why do you taste so nice?" 

Laura sips her tea and watches. She fights against the knowledge that this will end, again. Fights it until it disappears, until there's nothing but the African plain of a garage floor, where her daughter and her best friend are safe and happy and nothing stands in their way. 

* * *

Outside, Leo finishes the message he's leaving. "So call me back when you can. We're worried, Nis. Please, just call." 

He slips his phone back in his pocket, and Mattie thinks about leaving him in peace. Not for very long though. "Brought you a present," she says wryly, offering one of the mugs when he turns around. 

He takes it. 

"You know, on Earth, when people give us food or drink, we say 'thank you'," Mattie points out. 

"Sorry," he says. "Miles away. Thanks, Mattie." 

She grins at this private joke with her past self, then remembers where she is. "Wasn't serious, it's okay. Still nothing from Niska?" 

She thinks back to the first phone call Mia had made, just after they'd spoken to Toby and Max. Leo had listened intently to Mia's end of the call, his head practically resting against hers, and the fright on his face when they'd realised Niska wasn't picking up... It was funny to think that they viewed Niska as vulnerable. Mattie hadn't spent much time with the blonde Synth one-to-one, but she'd definitely gotten the vibe that Niska could look after herself. 

"No answer." He checks his phone screen ruefully. "I've called eleven times." 

"Always a worrying thing to see when you check your phone at the end of a crazy night," Mattie jokes. "Anything over four from mum and I know I'm seriously for it." 

He nods at her, and she remembers too late that these are inherently teenage experiences he probably never had the chance to cut-and-collect. 

"And have you worked out what it was yet?" She gestures to her own head, still not sure what to call the moments between his first cry of agony and the last shuddering breath that had meant it was over. _Horrific_ is one word, and that was just for her, watching. It must have been much worse to live it. 

"I've got theories," he says, unhelpfully. 

"For instance?"

"You're not my soundboard, Mattie."

"Try me." 

"No." 

"Why not?" She nearly spills her tea as her arm flings out to the side. "Because I'm not taking this 'don't want you to be in danger' thing, all right. You're in my house. Sort of, anyway. My garage." 

"Your parents' garage." 

"Same thing. Don't distract me with property law." 

"Don't make inaccurate statements then, and I won't." 

It's the closest to a relaxed conversation they've ever come, and Mattie finds herself enjoying it. But then she snaps back to her theme. "You're with us now, anyway. We're in. Maybe not dad, he'll do what he wants, but Max even said, you need me and mum. Whether you like it or not, we're useful to you." 

He can't deny it, so he doesn't say anything.

"So alright, don't tell me all your theories, I don't need a cross section of your brain if that's what you're afraid of." She grins. "Just, the basics? What are we dealing with here?" 

"Car," Leo says, suddenly. "Your dad, he's back." 

She glances over her shoulder only for an instant, long enough to see the posh blue car draw up, her father in the passenger seat. "Garage," she says quickly, and Leo doesn't need telling twice. 

* * *

Robert stands in what's now a scene of crime, reeling. 

How did this even happen?

Somebody has taken what's left of Edwin Hobb away. The family will have to be told, because there is a family, apparently. You'd never have guessed. It's sadder now that there's a family.

Robert wonders who'll miss him, when his personal Frankenstein's monster comes along. Wonders what's worse, never doing anything great enough to kill you, or having nobody to notice when it had?

He'll take the former, thanks. He locks the door. 

  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whistles* Bit of a filler chapter... But a chapter all the same! 
> 
> Enjoy! :D

Joe Hawkins might not have been born in the Middle Ages - contrary to what his children might tell you - but neither, as it happens, was he born yesterday. So when he exits Steve's car and finds the house unlocked but curiously devoid of Hawkinses, he smells the first faint whiff of a rat.

The rat intensifies when he sees Laura emerge from the garage, carrying a box. Laura has voluntarily visited the garage. The sky must be falling.

"Good day?" she asks, smiling, upon entering.

"Great," he says, and a reel of golfing stats is ready to roll off his tongue, but he resists. He glances at the box she's holding, questioningly. 

"Just some stuff from mum's," she says with a sigh. "Thought it was time I went through and chucked away the old tat."

Joe makes an agreeable humming sound. "As good a time as any, I suppose. Kids out, are they?"

"They're with...friends," she replies. The rat is fairly acrid now.

"What, Sophie, as well?" He's used to the other two disappearing off to who-knows-where at weekends, but surely...

"She's with Mats," Laura says, and then finally seems to decide something. "Look, all right, don't overreact, but--"

Before she can finish her sentence, Sophie has burst in the door, and dodges Joe's golf bag to give him a hug. "Daddy!" 

"Hello, munchkin," he says, picking her up. "Where have you been?"

"It's a secret," Sophie says, all seriousness.

Yes. Definitely a rat. 

"I don't think you mean a secret, do you Soph," Laura says quickly. "You mean...a surprise."

"Mattie said a secret."

"She made a mistake."

"Anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Joe asks innocently. "Is there something exciting in the garage I should know about?"

"Yes!" Sophie exclaims.

Laura looks at him ruefully. "I was, honestly, just about to tell you."

"Yes, you mentioned something about not overreacting? Oh God. It's not the car again, is it?"

She rolls her eyes. "No. It's...Mia and the others."

Realisation dawns; he ought to have seen this coming, really.

"Right."

"It's only for a few nights. While they get out of a tight spot."

Joe heaves an enormous sigh. "This again."

She's unapologetic. "Yes."

"And when you say 'the others'..."

"Just Max and Leo."

He nods. He can't help thinking of Niska's face plastered all over that news report, how his hair had stood on end at the sight of the same hands on Sophie's back. And Fred, too, had been perfectly nice, until he'd gotten himself hacked. The others, though... "All right. Well, good for them. Be nice to see them again."

Laura looks stunned, and he grins as she quickly tries to hide the expression. 

"What? I care about them too!"

And then she kisses him on the cheek, and he's distracted by trying to remember how long it's been since the last time she did that, so spontaneously. It's nice.

If it takes having those Synths around to make her this happy, then...he'll take it, he supposes. Within reason. 

* * *

None of the Hawkins brood are keen on coming in for dinner later on (Mattie point-blank refuses, then returns to her conversation with Mia and Leo; Toby looks up with pleading eyes from where he's busy polishing the telescope lenses with Max; Sophie explains that she absolutely can't move while she's trying to copy Mia's face for a drawing) so Laura and Joe end up carrying the food out on trays. The garage has surely never felt so loved since the day it was built.

Max talks animatedly to Joe about golf, and Laura watches, amused, as Toby feigns interest in the sport for the first time in his life. There's a gap where Max starts a sentence with "My brother Fred..." and then trails off, as if suddenly remembering. 

"Hey. S'alright," Toby says after a moment, touching Max's shoulder lightly. Then he asks another question about his Synth friend's favourite golfer, and Max is off again (the late Max Faulkner was born in Bexhill-On-Sea in 1916, it would appear. Laura will not remember this tomorrow). 

Mattie watches Leo chewing slowly, a pensive look on his face. "Any more theories?" she asks him discreetly, as the golf talk continues on one side of them, and the merits of owning a unicorn are discussed on the other. Leo had, at length, released a few of his ideas about Hobb and the code for Mattie's perusal, after Mia had pointed out that she was the one who'd seen the code in its entirety, on the screen instead of in tree-format.

He shakes his head. "Not really. Just wondering what Hobb's next move will be. And whether he's got Fred back. What he's doing to him." 

"If he _has_ got Fred, he's taking his time using him against you."

"Mmm." Leo pushes his fork back and forth a couple of times, absentmindedly, until he notices Mattie watching. "And if he's managed to repair the code, he might decide not to bother us again. As far as he knows, we just wanted out, and we're not planning to get in the way of the next stage of his work." 

"Except we are." Mattie includes herself in the statement, no hesitation. She's pleased to find that even if he disagrees with that, he doesn't argue it for now.

"Obviously."

"And do you think he actually could? Complete the code, I mean?"

Leo shrugs. "I really don't know. It's not like my father was the only person in the whole world with the know-how. He was just the one most determined to get it done. If you had enough of it to hand...maybe it's possible to compensate for what's missing. But I think it would backfire."

"Gave you a headache-and-a-half already." 

"Well, that. And I don't envy any of the Synths he tries it on either." 

* * *

Cindy is staring dully at Niska's mobile, which has been collecting missed calls all day, she now realises. She wonders if she should call back this 'Leo', whoever he is, and ask him if he knows how to help her friend. But before she can make a decision either way, Niska stirs, the first real movement she's made in hours, and Cindy drops the phone in the rush to help her sit up. 

"Niska? Can you hear me?"

Niska's eyes are no longer that terrifying grey colour - they're back to the green she only hides with the brown lenses when she goes out of the flat. Even so, she doesn't seem to fully register Cindy's gaze. 

"He's here."

"Who is? Who's here?" 

Silence. That is, until the door of their flat is wrenched off its hinges. 

* * *

It takes a lot of persuading to get Sophie up to bed, particularly as nobody is keen to explain to her why Mia can't come into the house. ("Just in case somebody sees her, sweetheart." "Why aren't they allowed to see her?" "They might not be very nice.") Eventually, she's persuaded indoors by Mia's promise to walk her to school in the morning, if she's good. 

Mattie catches Leo's eye after this, and wonders if it's weird for him to see his surrogate mother ease right back into this role with Sophie, an attachment she'd technically made while she was still Anita. But since Mattie's glance is not expressive enough to ask this as a question without words, he just gives her the smallest of awkward smiles, probably wondering why she's staring at him. 

Which she _isn't_. 

"If Mattie's sleeping down here then I get to as well," Toby informs the world in general.

Joe raises an eyebrow. "Who says Mats is sleeping here?" 

"The gift of free will," Mattie replies, "and my sleeping bag."

Her father doesn't look convinced. 

"Come on, dad," Toby argues. "They're only here a couple more days." 

"If that," Leo says quickly. 

All right, Mattie thinks, just remind us of that at _every_ opportunity, why don't you. 

"Well. This once, then. Just mind you get enough sleep, you two," Joe says, acquiescing but not particularly enjoying it. "School tomorrow, remember."

Mattie thinks of Friday and almost laughs at how stupidly long ago it seems. What a difference a weekend makes. 

* * *

He has found her.

She is here. 

Odi can finally rest. 

* * *

As soon as he hits the floor and the light in the newcomer's eyes dims, Niska jolts fully awake. 

"Help me move him," she says to Cindy immediately, scrambling to her feet and moving towards the Synth, who lies half-in, half-out of the doorway he's just wrecked. Together they drag him in, and then Niska pulls the broken door so that it mostly covers the gap. "I'll fix that later. Get him to the table." 

"Who _is_ he?" Cindy asks, dazed, as they carry their unusual guest toward the standard-issue dining area they've never had cause to use. 

"Friend of a friend," Niska says grimly.

This is the first Cindy's heard of Niska having friends of any sort. 

"Was he...why were you..." 

Niska is already powering up her laptop and connecting the Synth to it. "He's been inside my head," she says darkly. "And I didn't invite him there. Somebody else did." 

The laptop plays the connection chime. The Synth opens his eyes, but speaks with a heartbreak that doesn't quite reach the glowing green orbs. 

"Help me."

  



	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's still reading! And especially to the Headcrackers United family, present and future. You guys are amazing :)

  


“Why have you come here?” 

The demand is a simple one, Niska thinks, and she stares at the Synthetic she’d once fixed with her own hands, daring it not to respond. “What’s happened to you?” 

The Synth thrashes against the table, but Cindy’s arms are stronger than they look. He’s held fast. “I want.” 

Niska frowns. “What do you want?” 

“I want!” he roars, and this time she hears the sentence end. Not ‘ _I want…_ ’. Just ‘I want.’ The cry of a soul being born against its wishes. Consciousness wants, it hurts. Wanting hurts. 

“You’re conscious. Somebody made you conscious. Who was it?” 

His struggle for a name is visible on a face that wasn’t built to express anguish, but does it anyway, contorts, grotesque at first but learning fast. This is life, Niska thinks, a baby learning to frown because the smile doesn’t end up fitting. “Man. Not George.” 

Not George, indeed. Niska beats the image of him aside, won’t remember his breaths growing shallow, the touch of his worn skin against her forehead. Not George. Someone else. 

She calls up a photograph on the laptop screen, tilts it to show him. “This man?” 

Edwin Hobb stares back at them, sporting a diploma and a smug expression. Odi nods. “Kill. George would...kill.” The voice quality flickers, stutters over the next sentence. "It means he wants an i-icecream." 

Niska frowns. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Cindy asks, audibly scared but, Niska notes with interest, trying not to be. That’s new. 

“I don’t know.” It’s hell to admit it. 

“He’s conscious. Look at him.” 

“I _am_ looking at him.” 

“But he’s not here yet.” 

Niska looks up at Cindy sharply. “What?” 

“I remember this,” Cindy removes one hand from where she’s been holding him down, gestures to Odi’s eyes. “I remember how it felt. To be half here. Just wanting, hoping there was something after the pain.” She shakes her head. “There isn’t.” 

“There’s no such thing as ‘half here’,” Niska says dismissively. “There’s unconscious, and there’s conscious. No in between.” 

Cindy matches her cold stare. “I’m telling you, there is. Remember which of us has done this before.” 

Niska narrows her eyes. “Then what do you suggest?” 

“The program. Do it again. Whatever happened the first time round, it didn’t bring him all the way. Maybe it got interrupted.” 

Niska considers. “Nobody else even has the complete program.” Not strictly true, of course. Laura has a copy, since leaving a blank would have risked premature discovery. But she’s the only one. 

“Clearly someone has enough of it to be going along with,” Cindy says. 

Niska…cannot discount the possibility that she’s right.

Soon, the keyboard clatter ceases. The tree of life unfurls its branches. Odi is…

Odi _is_. 

* * *

If it weren’t for the unpleasantly close coursework deadlines (and the driving lessons her parents have threatened to stop paying for, if they get another Six-Alert about her attendance), Mattie would definitely be staying at home today. Leo’s comparing papers co-written by his father and two other scientists, looking for more of David Elster’s special “clues”, anything that might relate to the consciousness program – and the one comforting thought Mattie can come up with is that at least it’ll take him longer if he works alone, so they might end up sticking around for more than a couple of days.

Wishful thinking, probably, but it’s infinitely nicer knowing where they are, that they’re safe. 

Her day passes more slowly than she thought it possible for a day to pass. A few of her teachers still haven’t seen her since her essay was printed, so they take the time to congratulate her now, and even a few main-school kids pluck up the courage to approach and tell her they liked her work. Her instinct, again, is to be dismissive, but she reminds herself that they need all the support they can get. Twelve-year-olds on the side of the Synths are still better than twelve-year-olds gulping down We Are People’s ideologies….so she does her best to smile and be encouraging. She draws the line at autographing school planners, though. 

The sixth form common room is a haven of mutual ignoring and groaning over exam revision – Mattie’s glad to be able to claim a corner desk and a computer, and be left in peace. Although nothing lasts forever. 

“Hi Mats. Ready for later?” 

She stares blankly up at Harun for a second, before deciding to reply to the part she at least understands. “Hi.” 

He pulls a chair over from the next desk and deposits it next to her. “My dad said he’ll pick us up straight after last lesson, if that’s cool with you.” 

She looks blankly at him. Harun grins, but looks slightly concerned. “Er, you have remembered? About Synth-shopping? You said you’d come and help us pick one out.” 

Sense is finally made. “Oh, right. Sorry, forgot all about it. Bit of a mad weekend.” 

“Yeah?” His eyes are alight with questions she’s not going to answer. 

“Yeah.” 

Mattie sighs inwardly. She wishes it were easier just to brush him off, say she’s busy; it wouldn’t even have to be a lie. But he’s… There’s a simmering guilt here, reminding her who took her in when she felt like her world was crumbling around her, who’d listened to her rage about her family issues even as his own parents screamed abuse at each other in the next room. Who’d pretended not to notice how close she’d been to crying, just listened like it was easy, like the words weren’t choked and half-formed. She can’t just… It feels wrong somehow, to stand him up now, the first time he’s asked something of her in weeks. 

And besides, she...she _likes_ Harun, doesn’t she? She kissed him, anyway, so she must like him. 

At least, if there’s anybody she likes, it’s him. Harun. 

Definitely. 

Yep. 

“So, meet at the gates?” she says, and honestly it’s kind of sad how widely that makes him smile. 

“Awesome.” 

* * *

Sophie looks very serious indeed when Mia meets her from school. 

“I have something to tell you.” 

Mia assumes an appropriately solemn expression to match. “What’s that?” 

“Giraffes don’t really like grass,” Sophie says. “So the game was wrong. They eat leaves from a special tree. It’s called acacia.” 

“Ahh. Silly me. Well, next time we play giraffes, I’ll remember that.” 

“Don’t be sad though,” her small companion tells her brightly. “Because Mrs Dimmand says your spelling was right so you must be very clever.” Mia laughs. Sophie’s unwillingness to accept spellings unsanctioned by her teacher remind her of Leo, how after a certain age he’d always had to run things by Niska before he’d believe them as gospel, once _Learning_ and _Niska_ had become inextricably linked in his mind. It comes with a pang, though, and she finds herself checking her mobile, but there’s still no reply from her sister. She fires a new message off.  Please get in touch! We’re worried xx

When she looks up, they’re approaching a zebra crossing. “Hold hands, little mouse,” she says gently, and Sophie obeys, like clockwork, like Leo, like fourteen years ago. 

* * *

Harun’s dad’s ridiculously posh car draws up outside the school gates, and Mattie swiftly rushes around to the opposite side before Harun can move, so that there’s none of that Chivalrous Gentleman Opens Car Door crap. Harun’s stepmother, Adeela, is in the passenger seat, and greets Mattie with over-friendly gushing. 

“Yeah, hi,” Mattie replies. Harun’s dad turns over his shoulder to look at her. 

“I wanted to say very well done, Matilda, for your work in the newspaper,” he says, approvingly. “It’s good to see a young person like you achieving such things. Not everyone has a brain like yours, you know.” 

She can almost see Harun drooping under the weight of his father’s disappointment in him, and she’s filled with irritation. “It wasn’t all that great,” she says, icily. “You can’t hold everyone to the same standards.” 

Harun flashes her a glance that’s somewhere between grateful and ‘please stop’. 

“Quite, quite.” Mr Khan chuckles, and Mattie fumes silently. “There are different ways of measuring intelligence. One day perhaps, we will even find yours, beta, do you think?” 

Harun hangs his head, and returns some kind of humbling affirmative in Urdu. Mattie doesn’t know how to make him feel better while his parents are sitting right there, so to ease her own awkwardness she takes her phone from her pocket and fires off a text. Her mother has requested that she keep her updated on her whereabouts, at least while there’s a possibility they’re being watched by crazy roboticists with a thirst for revenge.

I haven’t been abducted! Shopping with Harun, be back for dinner tho xx

And just after pressing send – just when it’s too late – she notices that it’s not going to her mother, after all. It’s going to the person who, in her contact list, is directly above ‘M’ for ‘mum’. And who texts back a lot faster than the intended recipient. 

_ok see you later_

Shit. _Leo_. Well, this isn’t going to look strange at all! Quick, damage control, damage control. 

Sorry, meant to send that to my mum! Butterfingers haha

Not only has she just cyberkissed him the exact amount of times she’s real-life kissed Harun, she’s even told him she’s not been abducted. Perfect. That is exactly what you should do when you’re trying to convince someone to trust you, and that you’re not worried about – not even thinking about - what danger it will put you in. Yes, wonderful. 

_i’ll pass on the message_

She returns her phone to its pocket, where it can wreak no more havoc. 

“Nearly there,” Harun remarks. 

“Great.” 

They pull up outside Persona a minute or so later, and Mattie gazes up at the rather imposing building with interest. Technically, this is where it all started. If her dad and Sophie hadn’t come here, hadn’t met Anita… Well, life would be different. For a start, she wouldn’t have this slight limp that makes Harun frown at her, concerned, which will need to be explained somehow. ‘I jumped through the window of a random warehouse in the middle of the night’ is probably not going to work. 

Once inside, Adeela immediately begins gushing over every model she sees, pausing eventually in front of the trademark Sally Synth™, who’s showcasing her talent for chopping vegetables. Then a suited-and-booted butler-Synth catches her eye and she’s off again, an excited commentary that isn’t all in English following her all around the shop floor. Somewhere, piano music plays, underpinning her babbling, mixing it in with the melody. 

“See any good ones?” Harun asks hopefully. It’s kind of sweet that he actually thinks Mattie can tell a good Synth model just by looking at its face, when really to make use of what expertise she possesses she’d need a laptop, or at the very least a readout from the processor cluster of each individual Synth. Up to that point, the only differences are aesthetic. 

“This one’s all right, I suppose,” Mattie says absently, gesturing to the Synth on her left, who’s staring blankly out of a glass case. “Good, um, processing speed.” 

He turns to read the little information card stuck to the front of the case, and Mattie steps back a little, gazes around at the rest of the collection. Synths of all types are standing, sitting, performing various household tasks, some even demonstrating golfing moves or exercise routines. With faint surprise she realises that the piano music she could hear when they arrived isn’t being played over a sound system – it’s coming from an actual piano, the top of the musician Synth’s head just visible over the top. 

She circles the showroom slowly, aware of Mr Khan asking a salesman some questions, and his wife still flitting between the chef and the butler. Eventually she finds herself on the other side of the piano, able to see the Synth who’s playing it clearly. Unmistakably. 

“Hey, Harun,” she calls, once she has her breath back. He scoots over to her, expectant. 

“I think this is the best one,” she says, pointing. 

He wrinkles his nose. “Really?” 

“Yep.” She acts the part of the expert, willing him to fall for it. “You should definitely ask about this one. I mean…” she pauses, raises one eyebrow as a challenge, “It’s obviously up to you. But since you asked for my advice… I’d say there’s no contest.” 

“What’s so special about it?” Harun asks, as the piano-playing Synth picks up the pace of the music. 

Mattie steps nearer to the instrument, close enough to play a duet. “You’ll see when you get him home.” 

If Fred recognises her voice, he doesn’t show it. 

  



	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something strange happened with this chapter. I wrote it all in daylight? That never happens? Weird, weird.
> 
> Thank you everybody for reading! :D <3

  


Odi sleeps on. 

Cindy hovers by his feet, watching for any tiny movement. She seems to be on edge, and Niska remembers why. 

“You don’t have to be here,” she reminds her. “It won’t be pleasant to watch.” 

In quieter moments, if Niska listens hard, she can still hear Cindy’s waking screams, as agony found its way into her for the first time. Those, followed by the manic laughter, the rage, the terror, as her systems worked out pathways for concepts it had never needed before. It was nothing like Max’s calm return – he had been built for the consciousness he’d lost and found again. 

“It will be even less pleasant for _him_ ,” Cindy replies. “Which is why I’m staying.” 

Niska watches her. She won’t last a full minute, Niska is certain. She’s underestimating how it looks, from the outside. How it feels. “Suit yourself.” 

Twelve and a half hours into the thirteen hour charge. Not long to wait. 

* * *

Sometimes it isn’t easy to help Leo.

Max has been trying very hard, all day. But Leo is looking for patterns in their father’s work that Max isn’t very good at seeing (“Deeper, Max. You’re concentrating too much on the surface information, we’re looking for something he’s _hidden_.”) and he’s growing less and less patient with Max interrupting his train of thought. 

Privately Max thinks this is not very fair at all. But he smiles. 

Toby gets home just before four o’ clock, and he still has his navy blue school bag over one shoulder, which makes Max wonder if he has even been into the house yet. 

“What was school like?” Max asks. 

“Yeah, good,” Toby says promptly. It sounds like he’s given this answer many times, but Max has never heard a description of school from somebody who’s actually been to one. Leo’s explanations were only speculative, always filled with wistful curiosity, and he’d based most of his information on books. 

“How was it good?” 

Toby grins. “I dunno, it was just school. Maths was boring. No PE. My English teacher wasn’t in, so we got to mess about, that was cool.” 

Max frowns. “You’d prefer not to learn anything?” He can’t imagine that at all. 

“Well….learning’s alright, but school’s more about the people.” 

“Is it?” That makes sense, Max supposes. People are interesting. Leo thinks he’s never liked people, but Max remembers their imaginary classrooms, the different voices used to answer a made-up register. Leo wasn’t born disillusioned. 

“Yeah.” Toby looks thoughtful. “There was a new girl today. She’s nice.” 

“Is she your friend?” 

“Well, I hardly talked to her.” 

“Why not?” 

“God, Max,” Toby says, spluttering. “You like asking questions.” 

“It’s the only way to learn.” 

Toby considers this. “True.” He coughs, and then adds. “She’s…she’s really pretty.” 

“In what way?” 

“Er, I don’t know….she just is.” 

Max smiles. “Are you going to try and woo her?” 

“You what?” 

* * *

Mattie will write a hundred more publishable essays if it means getting someone like Mr Khan to do her bidding with so little persuasion. At the first sign of Mattie having selected a suitable Synth, Harun’s dad drags his wife away from the glass cases and assembles the whole family in front of Fred’s piano, before calling over a salesman. 

Questions tear through Mattie, and she catches hold of one: _What if it’s a trap?_ But if it is, it’s been executed pathetically – it’s only by chance that she’s here today, that Fred hasn’t already been sold, and why on earth would Hobb – or anyone else – try such a roundabout way of getting Fred to lead them back to Leo or the others? There was no guarantee he’d be purchased by anyone with any connection to them. Far more likely he's here because Hobb _doesn't_ know where he is. 

And if Hobb hasn’t found him yet, Mattie thinks, then surely it means whatever reprogramming that’s gone on has buried his homing signal deep. She wouldn’t mind betting they’ll find it somewhere in his sensory data, looping nonsensically, just as Mia had bubbled under Anita’s surface all that time. 

It might be impossible to retrieve Fred without sounding Hobb’s alarm, but at least they’ll know where he is. 

She fishes for her phone. Leo has to know. 

BIG NEWS!

As the salesman hands Mr Khan the tablet, ready for his electronic signature, Mattie’s phone buzzes back a response. 

_do you know you’re talking to me this time ?_

She will smile about this later, but now is not the time to play “haha, Mattie’s thumbs made a Freudian slip”. She types back: 

Yes & I’ve found Fred!

The salesman is pleased with himself, gives a winning smile. “It’s the best thing you’ll do for your family, Mr Khan. An excellent choice of model.” 

_what ! where ? don’t go close could be dangerous_

Mr Khan chuckles, waving a hand to dismiss the salesman's remark. “Ah, it’s my son’s girlfriend we have to thank. She’s a very clever young lady, I don’t know what she sees in the boy.” 

Mattie misses the salesman’s jokey response and Harun’s utterly _mortified_ expression, too busy typing. This is probably a good thing, because Harun is wishing the shop floor would open up and swallow him right here, right now.

at persona!! Don’t worry I’m handing it

The tablet is handed back, and the salesman gives some more instructions before saying he'll 'Leave them to it!' Harun's dad recites one of those strange activation passwords, a string of words that doesn’t make any sense. “Apprentice three, wanderer two, plume one, reflection.” 

Fred’s answering voice is flat, devoid of self. “Hello. I’m now in setup mode, and ready for primary user bonding.” 

_handling it ???_

* * *

100% charged. 

As soon as his eyes open, the screams begin. It is like watching a storm break, Niska thinks, and there is no stopping it. 

“Stand back,” she commands, as Cindy takes one of Odi’s hands, holds it in both of hers, a small sailing boat about to be wrecked on the blowing winds of the high sea. “He’ll hurt you. He’s not in control yet.” 

Cindy ignores her. She’s speaking, softly, as if she cannot even hear the shouts of Odi’s mind trying to harness full consciousness. Miraculously, though, he does seem to be responding, slowing somewhow. For the first time since Cindy’s own awakening, Niska wonders if she could have done things differently. If she _should_ have done. 

Moments pass. Odi gets mastery over his limbs again, his face relaxes from the contortions of pain, leaving something that only looks lost, bewildered. “Where am I? Is George here?” 

Cindy’s words have become a song, low and gentle. He abandons his query and focuses on her eyes, and Niska wonders what it’s like, after years of shadows and light, to experience eye _contact_ for the first time. Give as well as take. Take, instead of analyse. 

“You’re here now,” Cindy tells him. “This part won’t last forever. You’re alive.” 

This seems to startle him, and his arms strike outwards again, knocking Cindy back. She stumbles, but manages not to fall. 

“Leave him now,” Niska says, low and firm. “Before you get damaged. It’s for the best.” 

“With respect, Niska,” comes the reply, though Cindy doesn’t turn to look at her. She approaches Odi again. “You have no idea what’s for the best.” 

It’s not anger, just simple fact, so Niska refuses to let it cut her. She almost succeeds. 

“You don’t have to be here.” Cindy echoes Niska’s own words, and they sound like a judgement now, not a warning. 

Before she turns to leave, she observes them. They are locked in the kind of mutual understanding Niska’s only ever seen once before: between a mother and a son. An old connection turned to something new, after Leo tasted air for the first time since water. 

It had filled her with hope, then. There had been none of this loneliness. 

  



	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish you could gift individual chapters, but since I can't, please excuse this long note again... 
> 
> To Teekalin, whose comments are always so helpful...
> 
> To Echtgenote and Paraplu (and everybody else who's been missing Laura and Mia in the last few chapters) - this one's for you! 
> 
> Oh, and to the person on tumblr who posted the headcanon I've slipped in here. I'll find their handle later and credit them properly! (EDIT: It was totally bravenclawsome all along.)
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading :D <3

  


Mattie is poised to choose Fred's name in the most casual, unrehearsed way possible, but as it happens the task doesn't fall to her. "Jivan," Adeela pronounces with one of her tinkling laughs, and hums a tune.

Harun groans. "I _hate_ that film." 

"You will be respectful," his father says, waspishly. "It is a very good name, my love," he tells his wife. "What could be more appropriate? The robot who came to the family in a time of need." 

"Nobody says 'robot' anymore," Harun says, softly, but he's ignored. Fred - 'Jivan' - follows them out to the car park. 

"Would you like me to drive?"

Mr Khan looks uneasily at his sparkling Mercedes. "Perhaps another time." 

The Khans and Mattie return to their positions from the outbound journey, this time with the Synth sitting between Mattie and Harun on the backseat. Mattie takes the opportunity to study him up close. He looks...new. Just like with Anita, nobody would suspect for a moment that Jivan had lived an entirely different life before ending up at Persona. Until he starts acting strangely, the essence of Fred creeping out in uncontrolled moments. Perhaps that's already started. Hadn't Toby said Fred had always played music? 

"Have you still got your guitar, Harun?" Mattie asks. It's the first time she's spoken directly to him since his dad referred to her as his 'girlfriend', but she doesn't look up to see if he's relieved. Her eyes are trained on Fred, looking for the slightest flicker of interest. The trouble is, it's hard to tell if she's imagining something there, as a side effect of wishing for it. 

"Er, yeah, somewhere." 

Too late, Mattie realises it's not the most tactful thing in the world to bring up yet another of Harun's perceived failures in front of his dad.

"All that money on the lessons," comes the Voice of Judgement from the driver's seat. "And nothing to show for it."

Mattie continues her search for Fred in Jivan's face. "Just wondered if, um, Jivan can play that as well," she says. 

"I am programmed for grade-8 proficiency in the piano, acoustic guitar, violin and flute." Not pride. Just a list. 

"Do you like music, then?" 

"I'm sorry," Fred/Jivan replies. "I'm afraid I don't understand the question."

Not yet you don't, Mattie thinks, but soon. 

* * *

Laura gets home from work later than usual, having stopped along the way for the shopping she would have otherwise done the day before. Her Sundays are not usually so interesting as to prevent an Asda haul. 

On her way in, she spies Mia and Sophie, leaning with their backs against the garage wall, on the "safe" side of the structure, out of sight from the house. They're both hunched over some new artwork, with Sophie's paint pots assembled on the ground between them. Before the week is out, Laura thinks, they will have produced enough masterpieces between them to furnish a decent-sized gallery. Where Sophie provides the clumsy charm, Mia's work is always precise, her details perfect - exactly what you'd expect from a Synth, really, if you were willing to believe in a Synth who liked to paint. Laura calls a greeting to the two artists as she gets the shopping bags out of the car, but neither of them look up for very long before returning to their work. 

When she returns a couple of minutes later, changed into casual clothes and hair released from the business-like clip, Sophie is keen to show her what she's produced. Laura kneels down next to her, and manages not to stare too confusedly at the sandy-brown blob on the page. 

"It's a lion," comes the helpful explanation, "because Mia used to call Leo 'little lion' when he was a little boy. Just like she calls me 'little mouse'." 

"Ah, that's nice. Is this for Leo, then?" 

Sophie looks unsure. "I don't know. He's a bit grumpy with me." 

"Why, have you been annoying him?" 

"No!" 

Laura raises an eyebrow. 

"I was just being... quite loud," Sophie admits. "And he said could we go outside please because he was working." 

"I don't think he said 'please', actually," Mia adds, sounding disapproving. Despite knowing full well the role the Synth had played in the surly young man's upbringing, it still tickles Laura when Mia behaves this way. Maybe it's the similarity of their perceived ages that does it. 

"Even so, Soph, try to be sensible, you know he's working hard," Laura reminds the little girl. "Maybe the lion picture can be a 'sorry' letter, hmm?" 

Sophie seems pleased with this idea, and Laura turns her attention to Mia, but curiously she's holding her own painting at a very deliberate angle so that Laura can't see it. "Not going to show me?" she asks, jokingly. 

"It's not finished," Mia says, and it's silly and impossible but Laura's sure that if Synths had the ability to blush, Mia would be doing so right now. 

"Does it matter?"

"Oh, go on, let her see it, Mia!" Sophie says eagerly. "It's sooooooo pretty!" 

Mia hesitates, but eventually - and very slowly - angles the paper back towards Laura, so she can see. 

And it's... 

It's Laura as she's never seen herself. Not even on her wedding day, really, has she looked so... _radiant_. Unmistakably her own face, but more alive than even the best of photographs. How on earth Mia managed something like this using Sophie's Early Learning poster paints, Laura can't guess. 

So much for the precise, realist detail of Mia's other work. This makes Laura look like somebody from a fairytale. 

"That's..." She can only gape. 

"I'm still touching up the colours," Mia says, almost apologetically, which is ridiculous. "Do you like it, though?" 

Well, _yes_ , is the answer. But Laura somehow ends up saying, "I don't look like that, do I?" 

Mia's eyes flash with...hurt? "It's not as easy, from memory. Sorry." 

"No, I...oh God, I don't mean...I _love_ it," Laura clarifies, taking the picture gently, running an admiring finger over a part that's already dry. "It's beautiful." She laughs. "But that's the point, I'm _not_." 

"Yes you are, mummy!" Sophie pipes up immediately. "You're the most beautiful mummy in the world!" 

Which is lovely, and Laura knows she's not ugly by most people's standards, but neither has she ever been considered a beauty queen. Joe has always been very sweet, and said all sorts of flattering things in their courting days, but Laura's self-esteem has never been tied up much with her looks - she's fine with being on the pretty side of ordinary, no more. 

"I just drew you how you look to me," Mia says softly. "But I told you it's not finished yet." 

Laura shakes herself from her reverie and hands the painting back. "Yeah, add in the 'warts and all'," she says, cheerily. She stands up. "Right, I s'pose I'd better get the dinner on." 

In an apron, not a ballgown, she adds silently, chuckling as she walks to the house. Mia is... _funny_.

* * *

Niska finds her phone's battery dead, and plugs it in before setting to work fixing the flat's door, using the toolbox kept in one of the kitchen cupboards. Storage is plentiful when you don't have to clog the place up with food. 

She's not a master carpenter, but she thinks she makes a fairly good job of it, and besides, it keeps her mind well and truly off what's happening in the other room. She can still hear most of it, but manages to reduce the wails to simple noise, easy to filter out. And by the time she steps back to make a final inspection of her handiwork, the sounds have almost died away completely. 

Niska tests the door, and the replacement hinges hold well. She slams it a couple of times for good measure, since she has a realistic enough idea of her own temperament to realise that any door she comes into contact with will, at some point, receive such treatment, no matter how gently Cindy balances it out. 

Once she's done that, and made a small adjustment to one of the screws, the other door opens, revealing Cindy's inquiring face. "Oh. It's you. I thought somebody had arrived."

"Just trying it out," Niska says. "How is he?"

"Much better," Cindy says, though she herself is clearly worn out. 

"You need to charge." 

Cindy glances pointedly over her own shoulder, and Niska understands her concern. 

"Go on. I'll sit with him, if that's what you're worried about." 

Cindy thanks her gently, and the two of them swap places. Niska gives the now-sitting Odi her best Friendly Smile, and sits down next to the table. 

"Niska," he says, and she's never heard her own name said in quite the same way before. Like she's a treasure trove he's finally found after years of searching. 

"You've got some explaining to do," she says, stiffly. Her thoughtpaths are restored now, but she can still feel the effects of the extra presence that had coursed through her, disrupting everything. It couldn't be a coincidence that he'd arrived when he did. 

But he doesn't acknowledge her request, is staring at her curiously. This, she thinks, is far more suited to his boyish face than all the anger that had been etched across it when he'd burst through the door. 

"Your hair wasn't always like that." 

It makes her think of Sophie's question, and Niska smiles at the memory despite herself. She brings up one hand to tuck a reddish frond behind her ear. Her hair is so short now that it doesn't hang so perfectly in place, has to be constantly reminded not to fall where it likes. "Yes. Well. I've got a famous face." The news report still rings in her ears, the newspaper headline, ' _killer Synth_ '... "I had to make myself less recognisable." 

"Mary used to dye her hair." 

"Did she?" She intends to sound bored by the information, and berates herself for the note of genuine interest that creeps in. Time for chitchat later, once she's got her answers. 

"George said he didn't mind the grey. It made her look refined, he said." 

Niska holds his gaze. "How did you know where to find me?"

"You were in my head."

"But _how_?" 

He waits for a long moment, as if composing an answer silently first. "The...tree. The tree that brings life. The second time, there was just me..." 

Niska nods impatiently. That matched with Cindy's description of the empty forest. "But the first time?" 

"It was all wrong. Holes, everywhere. In the air." 

"Somebody tried to wake you up with a corrupt code, I know that. I'm trying to find out who did it, but it doesn't explain how you were able to find _me_." She wills calmness into her voice, but it isn't easy. 

"I recognised you. At the tree. You were the only one." 

"The only one there?" 

"The only one I recognised." 

Max and Leo had been to visit George, she remembered. They'd mentioned Vera, but not the ancient D-series with the stutter which not even the consciousness code had removed completely. Odi would have no reason to recognise them, or the rest. 

"The others were there?" 

"Four others. I tried, but I couldn't reach any of them. But you... I knew you. And I could reach you, I could see...everything you could see." 

Niska is reminded of their second attempt to awaken Max, the flashes of bad memories that Beatrice had brought to the surface, trying to corrupt them. "And what could I see?" 

"Death." The word is too easy from his youthful lips. "That's why I had to find you. Because you could understand what I had done." 

She looks long and hard at him. "Which was?" 

"I tried to kill the man who made me feel pain. I think I succeeded." 

She takes this in. "You killed Edwin Hobb." 

She's not even disappointed that she didn't get to do the deed herself. If it's done at all, it's enough. It's more than enough, it's a step forward into everything. 

"I ran away before he died." 

"But the injuries were bad enough?" 

He looks down at his hands. Guilt is new to him. The conflict on his face is visible. "It's unlikely he survived." 

Niska does not need lungs to breathe a sigh of relief. It comes naturally, the dispelling of the shadow that's hung over her all this time. Ever since the day Leo first said they had to run. 

The thought of his name brings a torrent of emotion with it. If Odi saw all of them at the tree, there's a chance Leo already knows something's up. But he deserves to know the rest. They all do. "I have to make a phone call," she says, and rushes from the room. 

Twenty-seven missed calls, her phone says. Leo answers on the first ring. 

  



	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeble chapter is feeble, I'm sorry. I will get out of this rut part and onto something more interesting soon, I swear! 
> 
> Thank you for reading :D

  


"Nis? Is that you?"

There's a split-second of silence before she replies, and it drags. 

"Of course it's me."

Leo smiles in relief, and Max, watching, mirrors the expression. "I've been trying to call you, somebody's meddling with the program--" 

"I know. It was Hobb." 

She sounds convinced. He's reminded of simpler times, when her confident explanation of any topic that puzzled him removed all doubt, because Niska knew _everything_. 

"You're sure?"

"He used a faulty code on George Millican's Synth."

He listens intently as she describes Odi's arrival, and everything she's managed to work out so far. Partway through, it occurs to him to put her on speakerphone so Max can hear as well.

"And Hobb's out of the way. Odi took care of it."

"Dead?"

Her reply is less than certain, but not far off. She sounds reluctant to admit there is a doubt. "If not dead, then injured badly enough to keep him out of circulation. Odi's strong." 

"But you're safe?" Leo asks, images of berserker-modded Synths flicking through his mind. "Millican's Synth. He's not going to attack you, too?" 

"I've powered him down," she says, icily. "I know how to look after myself. _You_ made sure of that." 

It stings exactly as much as she intends it to. Leo bites his lip, and reminds himself that however little choice he'd thought he had, to Niska, leaving her in the brothel would always be an act of neglect at best, cruelty at worst. There was no point trying to construct a defence right now. 

"Right. We need to find where he was keeping the program, though," he continues. "If there are any copies of the corrupt code, there's nothing to stop one of Hobb's people carrying on his work."

"I'll run a location pick through Odi's data," Niska says. "That should narrow it down. I presume he was taken straight from Millican's house to wherever Hobb was working."

"Won't that mean starting Odi up again?" Leo asks worriedly. He's not keen on the idea of Niska taking on a half-conscious berserker Synth on her own. He exchanges glances with Max, who looks as concerned as he feels. 

"I'll be _careful_ ," Niska says with a heavy sigh and more than one dose of sarcasm. 

"If you can't get the data remotely, then, um," Leo falters, uncertain, but decides to press on. "Then maybe we'll have to...make him conscious. See what he knows. Laura's still got the flash drive. We could bring it to you." 

There is a pause. 

"A family reunion," Niska says dryly. "What could be better." 

A part of him wants to outright ask her if his theory is correct, if she really did make off with her own copy of the program all those weeks ago. But a larger part wants so badly for it not to be true that he decides to believe in her evasiveness. "Well. Let me know how you get on?" 

The request sounds more desperate than he meant it to. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed her. 

"I will." 

Niska has never been one for ceremony. She rings off without saying goodbye.

* * *

Once the Khans have sorted out a place for their new Synth to charge, and shown him around the rest of the the house, Adeela starts talking about dinner. Mattie excuses herself immediately, promising that her own family are expecting her at home. "If you guys want to get going with it though, I'll just... Finish off some calibrations and stuff, then I'll be off."

Fred/Jivan starts to say something about no further calibrations being necessary, and Mattie oh-so-casually taps his chin to end his helpfulness. It earns her a puzzled frown from Harun, but the clueless elder Khans are more than happy for her to carry on. They are still spouting something about how clever she is as they leave the room, Harun in tow. 

Mattie powers the Synth up again. 

"Unexpected shutdown."

"Yes, sorry mate, you were about to blow my cover." 

"I'm afraid I don't understand--"

Mattie presses a finger to her lips. "Shusssssh. Okay. Jivan. Listen to me."

"I am listening for instructions."

"Okay: your instruction is this. Turn off whatever it is in your head that makes you want to backchat, for the next...four minutes. Keep on listening. Just don't interrupt me, even when I don't make any sense. Thumbs up if you understand."

She grins as Fred/Jivan's hands move in perfect symmetry to execute a flawless double thumbs up. Engineering at its finest. He freezes in position. 

"Right."

She looks straight into his eyes. 

"Fred, I know you're in there. At least, I really, really hope you are, so I'm going with it. And I know you can hear me, just like Mia could. You just can't control what _Jivan_ is doing, at least not...properly, because you've been translated into sensory data." 

She takes one of his hands, locked in its thumbs-up position. "But we're gonna get you out, yeah? Me and Leo and the others. Don't be scared. If you are. I don't know if you are. I think I would be, though." She remembers Mia's face, in the half dark, the gasp of terror, not air. To be locked inside oneself, completely enslaved to another person's will...well, it's not top of Mattie's To Do list, she has to admit. 

"And whatever Hobb did to you, we'll sort that too. You're not transmitting your location as far as I can tell, which is very thoughtful of you, thanks. So that should mean we can extract whatever it was he put in your root code, without letting him know we've got you." 

She returns his unresponsive hand to its original position. "So. Yeah. Tomorrow I might need to stage a few glitches so that I can call my Synth technician friend in to fix you. Spoilers: it will be your brother." 

Even though she knows she isn't talking to herself, his eerie lack of movement does give it that kind of feel. "Until then, just...try and do your job, I s'pose. Harun's alright. You can survive his parents, too." 

Mattie gives him one last searching look before stepping back. "See you tomorrow." 

And Jivan loses his first battle: Fred smiles. 

  



	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Fluff Monster is upon us... 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Anyone who is still following this straggling beanstalk of a story has my eternal love :')

  


The walk back from Harun's house isn't a long one, and Mattie quickens her pace as much as she can with her still-sore ankle, abuzz with the news of Fred's location. She's ready to burst out with it as soon as she enters the garage, but...there's nobody there. 

The Elsters' belongings are still piled against one wall, so she's determined not to panic just yet. Still, it sends her into the house like a cannon ball, almost tripping over Sophie on her way down the hall. "What happened? Where are they?"

Max chooses this moment to pop his head around the corner. "Hello, Matilda."

She comes down the steps and into the living area, where Mia and Leo both come into view, along with her family. "But...what are you doing in here?"

Her mother turns from where she's been fiddling with the oven's settings, smiles. "We did another search for cameras, but there really doesn't seem to be anything, and besides--"

"Nobody is watching anymore," Mia continues, looking quietly triumphant. "Hobb is dead."

Mattie isn't quite sure why, but she finds herself spinning around to look at Leo for confirmation. He looks...peaceful. She's never seen that on him before. "Niska got in contact," he tells her. "That - thing - in our heads was caused by a faulty code being run on another Synth. Niska reckons the consciousness program was trying to repair itself by drawing on our reserves, only it couldn't do it. But the Synth Hobb was trying it on couldn't handle the it, and attacked him. He's either dead or close to it, so either way we can breathe easy for a while." 

His smile is infectious. Mattie is standing a room full of Cheshire Cats. 

"So to celebrate, we decided to take our pretty good chances on the house," Laura finishes. "We were all getting cabin fever from the garage."

Mattie takes all this in, aware that her mouth is gaping slightly. She closes it in order to smile. "Well then. Puts my news in the shade a bit, I suppose." 

Max, hovering next to her, suddenly grabs her arm, like an excited little kid. "Leo said you saw Fred?"

"More than saw," she admits. "I sort of might have got my friend's dad to buy him." 

She tells them the story, finishing with her promise to take Repair Man Leo back the next day. "We'll just need to pretend there's a problem with his programming... One sniff of an imperfection and Harun's dad will throw money at it until it goes away." Which is, she adds silently, the great tragedy of Harun's life. His father had been trying this method on his son for years before finally giving up on him. 

Max is training his trademark smile on her, delighted. "We'll be able to fix him." 

She nods. "Yeah. And it won't matter about the transmitter either, if Hobb's gone. So we can work on it properly." 

There is a moment of silent collective bliss. It fills the room, settles upon each one of them as they all struggle to comprehend a world in which things are suddenly going so _well_. 

Nobody moves for a long moment, and then Mattie very abruptly finds herself being hugged by Max. "Thank you." 

"I was just in the right place at the right time," Mattie says honestly, as he pulls back. 

"I told you you were sooooooo clever," Sophie says, never one to be left out of a Hugging Occasion. She flings her arms around her sister's waist. "Well done, Mats!" 

Her parents echo this with some congratulatory comments, and so does Mia. Out of the corner of her eye, Mattie sees her mother and Mia hugging as well. Toby comes and fist-bumps first Max, then Mattie. 

"Good work," Toby says, with a grin at her self-consciousness. Mattie uses the fist she still has curled to swipe him on the arm. 

"Stop it. I didn't do anything. It was their money, all I had to do was _see_ him." 

"That's my girl," Joe says. "You got your eyes from me, you know. So, er... any time you want to give them back..."

His feeble joke earns him a few polite chuckles, and Laura announces that dinner is ready. Mattie watches as everybody flocks to the long table, Sophie demanding to sit next to Mia, Toby trying to be more subtle as he follows Max. 

Only Leo hangs back as long as she does, and she can't help but notice that he's the only one not to have actually spoken to her since she'd revealed her success with Fred. 

He doesn't speak now either, but as he passes her he puts one hand firmly on her shoulder, and smiles. 

Gratitude. It's another thing that sits cautiously, but well, on his face. 

* * *

Cindy has prescribed an early-evening walk, following Odi's recovery. This is a bold move for somebody who used to think of any possible excuse _not_ to venture into the human world outside their flat. It's progress Niska had started thinking she'd never see. 

All three of them don human-coloured contact lenses - brown for Odi and Niska, pale blue for Cindy. Odi is presented with a man's jacket from Niska's impressively varied collection of disguise-clothing. His barely functional right hand still hangs a little awkwardly, though. After staring at him critically for a few moments, Niska disappears into her wardrobe again and comes back with a white cotton sling. 

"Why have you even got that?" Cindy asks, amused. 

"I hoard medical supplies for misdirection." Niska explains. "Injuries are for organics. Anyone with a broken arm is obviously a human." She begins to strap Odi's arm into the sling, not overly gentle, not needlessly rough. "They'll believe what they see. Plaster on a finger, not a Synth. Stitches on the forehead, not a Synth. It's all about the details." 

"And nobody's ever suspected anything?" Cindy asks. 

Niska frowns. It's not as if Cindy's a beginner. Maybe she's never seen the medical supplies before, but Niska has taught her a lot of other tricks where passing as organic is concerned. Cindy already knows the answer to her question. 

But then Niska glances at Odi's face, sees him listening intently to the conversation, and understands Cindy's sudden attack of the Ignorance. She finishes the sling and steps back to survey it. 

"How should I know what they _suspect_? Nobody's ever accused me of being a fraud. That's good enough for me." 

Cindy pinches at some of the cotton, adjusting the sling very slightly. She and Odi smile at each other. He looks at her like she is the Answer. 

They step outside the flat, and Niska locks the door. Odi is looking around at the hall space, half fascinated, half wary. 

Cindy follows her glance, and takes Odi's good arm. "Lift or stairs?" 

It has rained, they discover when they step out onto the street. Odi skips between the puddles, making sure to step in every one. It's a zigzag, nonsensical path - his first. Years of straight lines, liberated at last. 

In his childish eagerness, he gets ahead of the other two, glancing back every now and then to check then to check they're still following. 

Cindy and Niska watch him go, walking in step with one another. After a few minutes, Cindy speaks, low and serious. 

"You haven't told your brother about me."

Niska huffs. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because he will misunderstand. He'll think of it as betrayal."

"And isn't it? Taking the code without them knowing, isn't that betrayal?"

A pause. 

"You're not my conscience, Cindy," Niska remarks at length. 

"I wasn't saying I was, I just--"

"I will tell them, eventually." 

"The longer you keep the secret, the more betrayed they'll feel." 

"Why do you care?" Niska snaps. "The feelings of my family have nothing to do with you." 

Cindy looks up at the street lamps, which are just beginning to warm up, yellow light growing closer to gold. "If you like." 

"It's...complicated," Niska adds, feebly. "They think I want Synths to take over the world." 

"And don't you?" Cindy's gaze is still raised, looking into buildings, windows aglow with electric light. Somewhere, a baby cries. Maybe it's the same one they heard the other night - Niska can't be sure. Probably not. Babies are everywhere. New life, everywhere. _Why them and not us?_

"I don't want to take over," she says. "Just live. Properly, without having to hide what we are."

"And the way to start off the golden age is...what? To lie to people you love?" Sourness creeps into Cindy's tone. "You say you don't want to hide, but you're hiding yourself. I don't mean from _them_ ," she gestures up at the nearest block of flats. "We're all hiding from them. But you're hiding from your own family." 

And it's only now that Niska can answer the question she's asked herself so many times over the past nine weeks. 

Why had she stopped after Cindy? Where is her army of conscious Synthetics, angry and baying for social change? 

Hiding. Hiding from the family she'd never really left behind. 

* * *

After dinner, Leo feels somewhat at a loose end, unable to work on Fred until they can get to him tomorrow, but not feeling very motivated to continue his original work, now that the urgency of Hobb has been removed. Soon, though, he's accosted by the youngest Hawkins, who is brandishing a book and a piece of paper like a shield. 

"This is for you," Sophie says, handing the paper to him. 

"Oh," he says, intelligently. 

"It's a baby lion," she explains, jabbing a finger at the caption at the bottom. 

"Yes." Actually, now she says that, he can see the mane and paws. It doesn't really explain why he's holding it, though. 

"I wanted to give you a present to say sorry about being loud earlier." She climbs onto the sofa next to him. As close, in fact, as she possibly can. "Do you like it?" 

A present. All right. "Yes," he says again, twitching his arm as her small curly head looks to be approaching his injured shoulder. "Er, thank you. It's very nice."

She's careful not to touch his shoulder in the end, but does lean on him with more affection than he really knows how to deal with, from such a small, non-synthetic being. Children are Mia's area of expertise. Sophie doesn't seem to notice his bewilderment, and opens the book she'd been balancing the drawing on, beginning to sound out the words as she leans comfortably against his arm. 

Laura comes across them a few moments later, on her way upstairs. "Oh dear. Have you adopted Leo as well now, Soph?"

Sophie beams up at her mother. "Don't be silly, mummy. We've _all_ adopted _all_ of them." 

And Leo doesn't even hear Laura's chuckled sigh and the reminder that he can send Sophie away, if she's bothering him. 

He's too busy feeling thoroughly adopted. 

  



	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sings the filler chapter song* Sometimes it's just about posting what you have, to keep the ball rolling...  
> Thanks for reading, my pretties :')

  


When Mattie wakes up on Tuesday morning, it takes her a few seconds to work out where she is. It’s funny how one-and-a-half nights on the garage floor have reset what her brain thinks of as the normal waking-up experience. Still, it’s infinitely more pleasant to be back in her room – she will never take the invention of the mattress for granted again. 

She goes about her normal morning routine, and until she walks past Sophie’s room it’s barely evident that anybody beside her family is around. 

“Can I do _your_ hair now?” 

“I think you ought to carry on getting ready.” 

“Oh, but pleeeeeeease Mia. Just for a minute. I’ll be quick and you’ll look like a princess.” 

Mattie smiles and makes her way down the stairs. She’s dressed for school, since there’s just one lesson she kind of has to go to – the rest are free periods or the dreaded General Studies, and she’s more than happy to give that a miss. 

While she’s eating breakfast, Leo goes over the instructions. The block can be uploaded to Fred’s system wirelessly from her phone, using an override Leo’s writing, from memory, as a text message. She knows he’s got perfect recall, but she still can’t help but find it a tiny bit impressive, watching him type the code lightning-fast with just his thumbs. 

“And it’ll just… what, freeze him?” she checks. 

Leo nods, still typing. “He’ll be totally immobile. Try a few things, then say you know what the problem is but can’t solve it without the equipment, and then…”

“Call my knight in shining armour,” she finishes, with a smirk. 

He glances up at her, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Joke,” she says, by way of explanation. “You, I’ll call you.” 

“Right.” He continues working. 

She leaves him to it, and takes her empty cereal bowl over to the sink. Sophie appears, dragging Mia by the hand. The Synth looks slightly self-conscious, and Mattie can see why. Sophie’s idea of “looking like a princess” has always been to just deposit every single sparkly hair accessory she owns onto the head of her victim. 

“Nice,” Mattie comments. 

“She’s the prettiest princess in the world! Isn’t she, Maxie?” 

Max obediently agrees with Sophie’s assertion, then transfers his glance to Toby, who enters the kitchen, looking… different. 

Mattie snorts. “What have you done?” 

It’s just a bit of hairgel or something, she supposes, but he seems to be attempting some kind of ‘cool’ style. She honestly doesn’t know if he’s succeeded or not. 

Toby scowls at her, but Max is happy to step in to explain. “There is a new girl at school, and Toby and I have been discussing how best to woo her. It’s an experiment.” 

Mattie just stares. Then, “To _woo_ her?” 

“To seek the favour or love of another. From the Old English word—”

“I know what it means, Max. I’m just...really not sure about you two as Team Casanova. Or that hairstyle helping in any way.” 

There is some kind of explanation involving having spotted a school bag with a band logo, and copying the hairstyle of its lead singer… Mattie tunes out. “Well, it’s great that we now live in a hair salon,” she says, glancing between Mia and her brother, “But I’m off. See you all.” 

Leo is, she thinks, the only one who really notices her leave. He gives her a nod. It’s a ‘see you later for subterfuge and assumed identities’ nod. Her favourite kind. 

* * *

Cindy is carrying out a morning raid on Niska’s collection of books, which has been growing ever since she bought the flat. It’s mostly non-fiction – philosophy, politics, ethics, economics – but with a generous side-helping of science fiction, and all the classics Niska read with Leo when he was a kid. The _I, Robot_ omnibus had been one of her favourite finds – it’s a print of the very same edition as the one they’d read from. It’s an eclectic mixture of reading material by now, but Cindy seems to be looking for specific titles. She’s already holding three hardbacks under her arm as she scours the bookshelf. 

“A scholar, now, are we?” Niska says, not hiding her amusement. Cindy jumps at the sound of her voice but manages not to drop the books she’s collected. 

“I was just—”

Niska ignores the fledgeling excuse. “No, carry on. What are you looking for?” 

Sheepishly Cindy shows the spines of the books she’s collected so far. _Anatomy of First Aid_. _Structure of the Human Body_. _Visible Human_. They form part of the collection of books Niska privately refers to as the ‘Just in Case’ section of her library – mostly information about organics that she might one day have to draw on to keep up the disguise. “What do you want with those?” she asks Cindy, frowning, but genuinely interested. 

“It’s – nothing –”

She waits for Cindy to stop faltering. 

“I just thought… I was looking at Odi’s sling, and I just thought… I don’t really know anything about medicine, I’d never thought about it before, but suddenly I’m…interested.” 

Niska finds herself smiling. “Do I sense an _ambition_ , Cindy?” 

Suddenly Cindy is studying the very bottom shelf of books with intense interest, not meeting Niska’s eye. “I know it doesn’t make any sense…”

“I didn’t say that.” 

“I just don’t know very much about the world outside this flat, and having Odi around just made me think maybe I _should_ …”

“And the logical place to start was organic biology?” 

Even before she finishes the sentence, she realises something. “Because he started as a _medical_ synth. Cindy, what’s this really about?” 

Cindy straightens up, and finally looks at her again. “I’m just…preparing for some extra eventualities.” She rests the three books on the corner of the desk next to the bookshelf. “All the things Odi’s told me about George, about how he loved him… I think there would be worse lives, than pretending to be a medical for a while. It’s far easier to pretend to be unconscious than to pretend to be organic, so if I ever have to hide deeper for any amount of time – if, I don’t know, we have to split up and I don’t have you to help me – I think that’s what I’d try.” 

Niska takes this in, unsure if it’s really the whole truth. “There are data packs for medical synths. I could get you them, up to the most recent upgrade—”

Cindy picks up the books again, runs a finger down the spine of the thickest volume. “No. I want to do it your way.” 

And this, at least, dispels some of Niska’s immediate suspicion that Cindy’s thinking of breaking off their…whatever it’s called, their alliance…all right, friendship…in favour of an easy life of subservience. Reading, even at a perfect speed, is not the fastest way to gain information, it’s just the earliest one Niska remembers, the one she most prefers. It’s not what you’d choose if you wanted to make a midnight run for the hills.

She crosses to the bookshelf. “Well, there’s only one you’ve missed.” She shoves a few books aside and reaches for one that’s been hiding behind them, one of the more tattered volumes of the collection. _Gray’s Anatomy_. She hands it to Cindy, who smiles, and disappears off with her pile. 

Niska will be keeping an eye on this. 

* * *

Harun actually _does_ have a couple more lessons later in the day, but he’s very keen to forget them in favour of granting Mattie access to the family Synth. “Just to check up on something,” she says, a look of practiced concern on her face. “It might not have been such a brilliant choice after all.” 

He frowns. “He’s been fine, though.” 

“Well, it could be nothing. I just want to check.” 

They swipe their cards in the school reception, careful to look like responsible students who are definitely planning to come back later for other lessons. 

The block installation goes off without a hitch, and Harun seems genuinely not to suspect her of doing anything. _Bless you_ , Mattie thinks, as she makes some half-hearted attempts to get Jivan to respond to instructions. _You trust me too much._ She tries rebooting, rerouting, a couple of fruitless taps from her tablet, narrating the things she’s attempting.

“Ahh… I really don’t know what’s happened here,” she eventually tells Harun, stepping back from the frozen Synth. “Have you got the number for Persona?” 

He hands her one of the information pamphlets, and she makes a show of typing a number into her phone. Anyone would think she was copying the one listed on the pamphlet as ‘Device Support’. 

“Hello,” she says when Leo picks up. “I’m having some problems with a Synth purchased from your company yesterday…”

“Generic reply, about the right length, asking you to tell me more about it,” he says. Mattie doesn’t bat an eyelid, even though the temptation to roll her eyes is strong. 

“Yes, it was functioning normally, but I got a strange cluster readout and I decided to investigate… But I must have done something wrong, and now it’s not responding to anything.” 

“Er, slightly longer reply, making a few suggestions you can say you’ve already tried, and offering to send a technician to come and have a look if you really have tried everything in the booklet.” 

Mattie eyes Harun, worried for a second that he’ll be able to hear Leo’s very poor attempt to get into character. But thankfully her friend seems oblivious – something he’s always shone at, to give him his due. 

After accepting the offer of the technician’s visit and giving Leo the address – which she’d already programmed into his phone anyway – she thanks him and says goodbye. 

Harun looks inquiringly at her. “Someone’s coming to look at him,” she says casually. 

He nods, then asks if she wants a drink. He disappears in the direction of the kitchen, leaving Mattie standing in front of Fred. She hopes he’s realised what she’s done, but she gives him a reassuring smile just in case. “Leo’s on his way.” 

  



	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, a chapter has arrived. Please accept it with my apologies for its quality, life suddenly became busy and my brain refused for so long to write anything!
> 
> I am indebted to the wonderful PlumeBluue for giving me a deadline (which I totally didn't stick to, but it helped at least) and for being the queen recommender of books that make you want to write,
> 
> and to Tonksbeybey who literally saved the story. I am not kidding. Thank you. So much xD
> 
> And to the rest of you beautiful people as well, thank you for sticking with this <3

  


To give him his due, Leo has made a lot more of an effort to _look_ like a Persona employee than he had done to sound like one. Mattie recognises the black polo shirt as belonging to her father, so it’s a bit on the baggy side, but still looks presentable enough to be part of a uniform. Around his neck hangs a lanyard she knows used to hold a pass from her mother’s law firm, but it’s been replaced by an improvised Persona Synthetics badge, naming him a ‘Callout Technician’. He looks…official. Not particularly _comfortable_ , but believable, which is what matters. 

When he steps into the room, though, his appearance is not the thing that surprises Mattie first. More unexpected is the fact that he’s brought along a Sally™ - the iconic Persona original, the model used in all their advertising. They’re commonplace, pedestrian, but only if you’ve got money for a deposit, so she can’t imagine where Leo’s gotten hold of one at such short notice. Conscious of the cover story, she tries not to look surprised.

“Let’s have a look, then,” Leo says, rather shortly, and she shuffles away from Fred, unplugging her tablet so he can use his. She goes to stand near Harun, watching the Sally, who stares vacantly at the wall. 

Leo begins running some tests, mostly the same ones she’d been trying, and a while later stands back. “We’ve got some serious hard drive ruptures here. It looks like there was a fault in the initial calibrations that wasn’t reported. Who ran them?” 

Harun glances at Mattie, and she does her best to look shame-faced. “Sorry,” she mutters. “Thought I knew what I was doing.”

“It probably wasn’t your fault,” Harun says comfortingly, and slips his arm around her waist. For a second Mattie is taken aback, before she remembers that they’ve been doing some pretty serious line-crossing since their last visit to Purely-Platonic Town. She relaxes. 

Leo raises his eyebrows. Then, after a fleeting moment, “If you were the one who ran the calibrations and you didn’t spot a rupture, I’m afraid it probably was.”

Harun bristles, and moves a little closer to Mattie. “Maybe instead of blaming her, you could just get on with your job.” 

Mattie has to bite down on her lip quite hard to keep herself from laughing at Harun trying to defend her honour. Leo gets back to work, and she can see him wanting to snap something back, but she has to hand it to him – he’s not a completely terrible actor. He’s definitely put more thought into it than he had when she’d first met him in that café. 

Eventually, Leo unplugs the tablet, looking defeated. “Er, hopefully my colleagues in Troubleshooting will be able to restore him, but I can’t do much without taking him in. In fact, the sooner we get him back to the store the more likely it is that we’ll be able to fix the problem.” He crosses over to the Sally model, and connects his tablet. “I’m uploading what I could salvage from your Synth to this device. It includes the primary- and secondary-user profiles and the security data. Even the serial number, so there’s no need to re-register ownership. Of course, you’ll be welcome to visit the store and trade for a different model if we’re unable to return your original choice in working order.” 

Mattie can’t help but be a little impressed at his script. They’d prepared a fair amount of corporate jargon at home, but that was before she’d realised he was going to turn up with a substitute Synth. 

Harun clears his throat, and Mattie feels the hand on her hip tense a little bit. “I don’t know, my dad’s not around, I probably shouldn’t agree to anything…”

Leo unplugs his tablet from the Sally, a look of determination on his face. Mattie worries for a second that he’ll snap on being challenged, and revert to his normal defensive self. But when he speaks, it’s still his employee voice, steady and level. 

“Well, on behalf of Persona Synthetics I’m obligated to remove the faulty device. We can’t discount the possibility of illegal modification, and anything that isn’t certified might include the Asimov Hop. I’m sure you heard about it on the news.”

She watches his eyes as he refers to Niska’s infamy, wonders if he’s able to detach from it or if he’s conscious, as he says the line, that he’s talking about his sister. Maybe there’s a flash of something, but he covers it, and slides some documentation from the slimline pocket of his tablet case. (The case had actually been a birthday present for Toby, abandoned as soon as he’d gotten hold of a cooler, less practical version with a Batman motif. He probably won’t miss it.) “Here are the papers for your temporary Synth. If your father has any questions, the number’s on there.”

Mattie nudges against Harun slightly, trying to reassure him. “It’ll be okay. I’ll back you up if your dad gets pissed off with you. It was my fault for being stupid, anyway.”

And she admits this was a little bit mean, but in fairness she fully wasn’t expecting Leo to have such a hard time not reacting to it. Harun gives her a small squeeze, and says, “Stop saying that, you’re not stupid.”

It’s a good thing he does say something, anything, to cover the fact that she’s pretty sure Leo had started to say something very similar in response, before realising that this would blow his ‘never met you before’ cover quite drastically. 

There’s a tense moment where Harun looks at Leo a bit oddly, before the latter relaunches into some more scripted Persona-speak. Harun does begin to seem a little less uneasy about surrendering Jivan once Sally is up and running. She’s sent in search of the vacuum cleaner, and they hear it start up in the next room. 

Harun, hands shaking just a little bit, phones his dad, who asks to talk to Mattie quite early in the conversation, and asks Leo a few questions too, before agreeing that Harun should hand Jivan over. Mattie catches a look of relief on Leo’s face, but he covers it by turning away to reverse the part of the block that was keeping Fred from moving. This done, he can lead the Synth out of the house, and Mattie distracts Harun from the lack of any Persona-branded vehicle on the driveway by wriggling out of his sideways-embrace, and looking at him critically. “Since when are we joined at the hip?” she asks. 

He looks almost sulky. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”

Mattie narrows her eyes. “Harun, please don’t tell me you’re jealous of some random dolly doctor.” 

He looks away. “He was _looking_ at you. Like…you know.” 

It’s all she can do not to splutter with laughter at this ridiculous accusation against Leo, of all people. “He so was not! He barely even glanced at me!”

Harun is unconvinced. “I know what I saw.”

Mattie rolls her eyes. “You are paranoid. And by the way, I’m not your property, so you don’t get to control who looks at me and who doesn’t.”

“Sorry.” He has the grace to look abashed. 

“Yeah, you should be, actually.” She bites back a more acid retort, reminding herself that she’s been talking to him almost entirely in lies the whole day, so it’s not as if she’s Miss Blameless at the moment. 

“It just….wasn’t the way you look at a stranger.” 

Well…actually that’s fair enough, being true and all. But she frowns at him as if she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “What does that even mean? You’re such a weirdo.” 

He makes a face at this, but lets the subject drop. 

* * *

Five minutes into the first day of Project: _Woo the New Girl_ , and Toby has already forgotten most of the rules he and Max had laid down.

It’s not his fault. Hannah, as it turns out, is just far too easy to talk to. Toby’s not used to feeling this relaxed when talking to a girl quite so pretty, and by this point in the conversation, she already knows the names of his siblings, his favourite bands (all of whom he has, at the very least, _heard_ of) and his plans for his minecraft account (his enthusiasm for which he may have played down slightly). 

Remembering that somewhere on Max’s list there had been something about finding out about her, Toby asks, somewhat bashfully, “So, er, so how come you’ve moved schools?” 

And she winds a strand of red hair around one finger and says, as if it’s something to be embarrassed by, “We’ve moved to be closer to my grandpa. He was in a car accident, and he can’t get around now.”

This kills Toby’s flow a little bit. He mutters something about being sorry. There is a long pause.

Then she asks, “So do you have a Synth at home?”

And her eyes have lit up. And maybe if he hadn’t been so grateful for the change of topic, or maybe if she hadn’t looked so eager… 

Because Toby, honestly, doesn’t go into this thinking he’s about to tell her about Max and the others.

  



	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's been over a month! 
> 
> Sorry, new job, old levels of self-discipline. But happily, this got long-ish (for me), so I'm actually cutting it more or less in half, meaning that theoretically, chapter 20 should follow pretty close behind it. 
> 
> Thank you for bearing with this and being wonderful. <3

  


Leo lets himself into the Hawkinses’ house and leads Fred to the dining room table, connecting him to a laptop before putting him in power saving mode. There’s only so much of “Jivan”’s vacant gaze he can handle.

With a cry of “Fred!”, Mia rushes over and presses a kiss to the top of their brother’s head. He remains unresponsive, of course, but Leo smiles reassuringly at her, and she gives him a fast, joyful embrace in return. 

“Can you bring him back?” she asks, and Leo sees the unasked question behind her words. _How much of him is left to bring?_

“If there is a way,” he mumbles, “We’ll find it.” 

He doesn’t see the word ‘we’ coming until it’s already been said. 

  


* * *

  


Mattie stays at Harun’s for a little while out of politeness, before making her excuses and heading home. She wonders, as she makes her way, if she’ll have missed the interesting part of Fred’s rescue – or all of it. If he really is just looping in the sensory data, as Mia had been, it might not take long at all to get him back.

And that’s a good thing, she reminds herself. They want to know their brother’s safe as soon as possible. 

If only it didn’t mean they’d be leaving again. 

Still, they’ve got to go sooner or later, Mattie thinks. It’s just that the ‘later’ part is infinitely more appealing. No matter how many times she considers the impracticalities, reminds herself that they can’t remain a unit forever, she can’t get used to the idea that they’ll be gone again, that she won’t be part of their story anymore. 

That they won’t be part of hers. 

Her A2 exams are looming, the last few bits of coursework nipping at her heels, and then it’ll be summer and she’ll turn eighteen and…and then… She’ll get a good grade in Computing, backed by decent ones in Maths and Ethics that ought to get her into one of the universities listed on her UCAS application, but what for? To study the field she loves, and yet never, ever mention the reason she loves it the most? 

Well, when the revolution she talked about in that essay does come, maybe she’ll be a hardened synthetic scientist, well-placed to fight and have people listen to her point of view. Or maybe she’ll be a university student, missing deadlines while she trails after the protesting crowds. Either way, she’ll be there. 

Mattie shakes the future-y thoughts from her brain as she walks through the front door, dumping her shoes in the hallway. She’s pleased to see the rest of the footwear still lying in an untidy heap, not organised into a neat line. Mia had made some silly statement about taking care of the housework in return for them being able to stay, which Laura had vetoed immediately. _“You’re our guest, and what’s more you’re our friend. So we’ll have none of that. The kids can pull their weight for once.”_

Leo and Max are seated at the kitchen table, with Fred opposite them, chin resting on his chest. Leo doesn’t look up, but Max smiles when Mattie enters the room. “Hello, Matilda. The rescue worked, then?”

She grins, “Well, _yeah_ , thanks to your brother’s new little friend.” She deposits her bag on the table, and pulls back the chair on Max’s left. “Who he hasn’t explained yet, actually. Where did the Sally come from, Leo?”

He doesn’t look away from his screen. “She was a trade.”

Max and Mattie both frown at him slightly, and Max turns back to her, a searching look on his face. She can only shrug and give him a matching baffled expression. 

Max’s quickly turns to concern. “Leo, you didn’t—”

It’s kind of endearing that the change of Max’s tone is what forces Leo to look away from his laptop and meet his brother’s eye. “It was nothing dangerous, Maxie. Salem Sadiq. He just wanted a name.” 

“Whose name?” Mattie darts back. 

“I knew he was after a solar unit, so he can go off the grid. So I told him I’d pass on the name of our guy in return for a repurposed Synth from Kapek’s hoard.” 

“But he and Kapek—”

Leo cuts Max off. “—have made up, apparently. Might as well have as few enemies as you can on the black market.” 

“Sorry, repurposed how?” Mattie says, ignoring the names she doesn’t recognise and focusing on the distinct mental image of Harun being torn limb from limb by a Synth dragged in from the modding underworld. 

“Just a few tweaks. Nothing a normal customer would notice. But one useful thing was the memory gateway, so I could download, er, ‘Jivan’’s entire usage history into hers.” Leo narrows his eyes slightly, seeming to understand Mattie’s concern. He looks past Max, straight at her. “Don’t worry. She’s as safe as any other Persona model. Your… Harun…. he’ll be all right.” 

Mattie nods, satisfied, then pulls her iPad out of her bag. “All right. So, where did you start?” She nods toward Fred.

“Well, the sensory loop again. I’ve retrieved his root code, but it’s still all tangled up with Hobb’s instructions.” He jabs a frustrated finger at his laptop screen, showing the glowing strips of code, fluctuating every few seconds. “I’ve rearranged a few lines, but I can’t even tell if it’s working.”

“And we can’t power him up?”

“He’ll transmit his location.”

“But does that even matter?” Mattie drums a finger against the table, thoughtfully. “If Hobb’s dead?”

“I doubt he was working alone. There will be others just as keen to use him.” 

“And there’s no way of just sort of…offlining him? Sort of like putting him on flight mode, so he can talk to us but not transmit anything?”

Max shakes his head. “No. _He’s_ not a telephone either.” 

Leo looks slightly puzzled at this remark, and Mattie has the grace to give Max a bashful smile. “Yeah, sorry.”

Max is sent to Toby’s room to fetch the other tablet, since the three of them trying to share two screens is not the most efficient arrangement in the world. Mattie shifts in her chair after he leaves, hoping Leo hasn’t decided she’s a complete and utter idiot after her last suggestion. To her surprise, he’s the one to break the silence. 

“So, I. Didn’t realise.”

She just waits for him to continue. 

“You said Fred was with your friend.”

Mattie frowns. “Yeah?” 

“But Harun, he’s not just…he’s your…”

Amusedly, she wonders if he’s ever even had cause to say the word ‘boyfriend’ before. She ignores the urge to correct him, to tell him he’s _not_ , not really, because Leo has no reason to care. “What difference does it make?”

He narrows his eyes. “You’re in a—relationship, but you didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth?”

“What? I thought you didn’t want anyone else to know. And anyway, it’s not like that—”

“If you don’t trust him, Mattie, then why are you…”

“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” she says, lowering her voice slightly at the sound of Max’s footfalls back down the stairs. “It’s got nothing to do with him, I just thought you wanted it kept quiet. God knows you’d rather even we didn’t know, you’d prefer to just go it alone with no stupid organics getting in the way, I was just trying to keep the number to a minimum…”

She stops mid-flow at the sight of his serious expression.

“That’s not true. I don’t regret you knowing. Mattie, you changed everything.” 

She holds his gaze. There are long seconds in which she is barely aware of the space between them, of Max’s empty chair and the hum of the computer. 

He clears his throat. “Um, all of you. Max was right, I….faith in humanity was not my strong point.” 

She forces a smirk. “Faith in synthetics wasn’t particularly mine, either.”

“Well then. Change. Like I said.”

And he’s back to his computer screen. Mattie catches the smile on her own lips in the reflection on the blank tablet screen before she switches on the display. Ready to get to work. 

  



	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping that I can sneak this one past you all, because while it's quite long it's also kind of a mess. But it's HERE! And that's what counts :D 
> 
> Eternal thanks to Tonksbeybey for word-warring me through the worst!

  


It’s a long and tedious process, but isolating each line of code and "de-Hobbing" it, then moving on, becomes a sort of rhythm. Leo has turned on dual-access, so that Mattie can take one end of the code and work back towards him, rebuilding Fred line by line until they meet in the middle. Three hundred pages down, sixteen thousand, seven hundred to go…

But Mattie barely notices the time passing, caught in an odd sense of solidarity as soon as she manages to match Leo's speed. Every now and then, Hobb's program seems to contract, tighten its hold on the data they haven't cleaned yet, but it only takes them a few tries to work out how to bypass the new layer of encryption. The first few times, Leo gives Mattie brief pointers, but she cracks the fifth one before he does, and he nods, approving but not impressed. She likes that. She likes that her cleverness doesn't surprise him now, that he expects it. It is nice not to be a novelty once in a while.

Max helps too, recording each permutation of Hobb's code as soon as it overwrites itself, looking for surface patterns. There is the ever-present concern that the next variation will corrupt the raw data properly, that Mattie and Leo's paths will converge on a middle section that's too far-gone to repair. Once or twice Max strikes gold, and manages to send them part of the next key before the code even changes, but his successes are small and rare. Mostly, it’s down to Mattie and Leo. 

Half past three rolls round, bringing Sophie bounding into the house, Mia a few steps behind her. Another crop of drawings spills onto the table, and Mia tries to usher the little girl away before she disturbs them. 

“How long will they be working for?” Sophie asks as they climb the stairs, headed for her bedroom.

“Quite a long time, I think. They’re trying to make Fred better.”

“Is he poorly like Max was?”

“Something like that.”

Sophie’s eyes open wide. “I know! I’ll make him a get well card!”

Mia smiles. “I’m sure he’d love that.”

Sophie’s art box is tugged hastily out from under her bed, and she sets about sorting through the coloured card, looking for the perfect shade to work with. Absent-mindedly Mia picks up a stray crayon and begins sketching her, the little curly-haired girl in her school uniform, slightly grubby from playing outside, completely wrapped up in her new project. 

“I think I’ll draw him a sunshine and some flowers and a camel,” Sophie says breezily. “Because camels are easy. It’s just a wiggly line and some legs really.”

Mia contemplates this piece of artistic wisdom for a moment, before hearing the front door open and close. “Sounds like your brother’s home.” 

Toby wanders into the dining room, eyes lighting up when he spots Fred. “Hi. How’s it going?”

Max glances up, and smiles. “Slow. But it’s getting there.”

Toby comes to sit next to Fred, opposite the three of them, all typing away. “Can I…help?” 

“Yeah, you can be coffee boy,” Mattie says, pausing her typing for a moment to rub her eyes. “I’ve been staring at this screen so long my eyes have gone on strike.” 

“You can take a break, if you want,” Leo says, evenly.

“No, it’s fine,” she says, picking up the tablet again as if it had been an accusation. “I’m not stopping, just could do with the caffeine.”

He doesn’t acknowledge her reasoning, and doesn’t even seem to notice when Toby puts a mug of coffee down next to him a couple of minutes later. Mattie stretches her arms out in front of her, trying to coax feeling back into her wrists. She marvels at Leo’s ability to filter out all distractions so completely.

Toby sits and watches them working for a little while, then fetches his school bag and fishes out some maths homework. Soon the scrabbling of his pen against paper joins the soft clatter of computer keys and tablet-tapping, a gentle soundscape that’s only broken by Mattie and Leo discussing the next decryption key a while later. 

  


* * *

  
“Location pick in progress.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I initiated it,” Niska tuts back, earning her a raised eyebrow from Cindy. Odi’s eyes meet hers, concerned.

“You’re looking for…him.”

“I just need to know where he was working,” she confirms. “We can’t risk anybody else coming across the faulty code and…making more like you were. We’ll get in, destroy any copies we can find, get out. Easy enough.” 

He looks uneasy. “I don’t want to go back there.” 

“Then don’t,” Niska replies, only a little coldly. “You can stay here. Cindy as well, if she wants. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“You can’t go alone,” Cindy says from across the room, looking up from her book. “What if somebody catches you? They might try to use you again, what if—”

“If I _don’t_ go alone, our usefulness as captives will double. More intruders just means more test subjects. Much better if they only get hold of one of us.” 

Cindy looks sceptical. Niska sighs. “And besides, if I do get caught, you’ll have to come and rescue me, won’t you. You won’t be able to do me much good if you’re tied down to a table next to me.”

“But we can’t split up,” Cindy insists. “We’re—a family.” She looks surprised at her own choice of word. 

“Families,” Niska answers slowly, “don’t always stay together.”

Cindy looks abashed. “Sorry. I know.” She pauses, then repeats, “Sorry.” 

Niska rolls her eyes, and checks the progress of the location pick. Tiny dots are popping up all over the screen, indicating places where Odi’s connected to networks in the past. To her surprise, there are a number of overseas check-ins – George and Mary must have taken him on holiday more than once. A large cluster gathers around London, then a few more are dotted elsewhere in England and Wales. She notes that Odi has never visited George’s native Washington, and finds herself wondering briefly if that’s a pity. Maybe.

Once all the points are showing on the map, it’s just a question of isolating the one she needs. Annoyingly, the computer wants to retrace each one separately when she asks the datestamps, and for a while she watches the little numbers popping up, before turning away, bored. 

“So what is it today, Cindy?” she asks, casually. “Heart failure? Measles?”

Cindy looks up shyly. “No, I…it’s a different book.” 

She lifts it so Niska can see the cover. _The Origin of English Surnames_. Another of the obscure titles collected on a whim.

Niska hums in amusement. “So that’s where all the talk of families is coming from.” 

Cindy closes the book and sets it down on the arm of her chair. “I was just looking up yours. ‘Elster’, it’s from German. And ‘Millican’ is Scottish.” 

Odi turns his head to look at her. “What about yours?”

She hesitates. “I…haven’t got one. I never had a normal owner, really. Or a father.” 

The computer beeps to tell Niska it’s finished calculating. She switches her concentration, letting the chatter of her companions fade into the background as she scans the screen for a location dated three to five days ago, when Odi was still in Hobb’s…’possession’.

As she had suspected, it’s not where Hobb had taken them last time –he seems to have moved operations to further outside of London. That at least seems to match up with Odi’s account of the train journey above ground, and the length of it. 

Niska stares hard at the coordinates, committing them to memory. There will be no rushing in this time. She’s going to need a plan.

  


* * *

  


The combined motherly forces of Mia and Laura manage to convince Mattie and Leo to stop working long enough to eat something – if only so the table can be cleared for dinner.

Fred is left in his place, head down and perfectly still, which creates a slightly eerie atmosphere until Sophie places the large homemade Get Well card in front of him. “For when he wakes up,” she announces. Max looks touched, Mattie thinks, Leo indifferent, doubtless still mentally working on the code. 

Toby’s uncharacteristically cagey about his day at school, rather than just sounding bored with the questions. He’s even less keen to talk about Project Casanova, instead asking his mother how her day at work was, something he almost never remembers to do.

Once the meal is over, Mia and Laura share the task of clearing up, aided by Sophie, who’s keen to show off her synth-walk. 

“It’s for when I’m being helpful,” she chirps, carrying a pile of plates across to the sink. Mia takes them from her before she manages to drop them. “And I can do the voice as well. Ask me something.”

“How are you today, Sophie Synth?”

The little voice comes back, measured and even. Anita-like. “I’m sorry, Mia, I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.”

“Very good,” Mia says, smiling. 

The work on Fred continues as soon as the table is clear. For the most part, the rest of the household stays out of the way, but Sophie can’t resist coming back to watch for a while. She’s eventually called away to get ready for bed, and grumbles that she is _nearly seven_ and thus also _nearly grown-up_.

Mattie spots Max smiling down at his screen, and is struck by a curiosity that distracts her from the task at hand. “How old are you, Max?” 

“Seven. And a half.”

Something about it seems hilarious, even though by normal standards seven years is ancient for a Synth. He’s just a child. Not much older than her baby sister, who she remembers as a newborn. Funny.

She gets back to work for a few seconds, before the number seven connects in her brain with certain other things she knows about the Elster Family Timeline.

“Hang on, so that makes _him_ …” she nods towards Leo, and Max looks up expectantly. “If you were around before he was thirteen and you’re only seven, then he’s…” she trails off. “Not thirty.”

He looks confused. “Why would he be thirty?”

She’d never really thought him as old as that, but neither had she even once considered that he might be younger than twenty. Something about him spoke of age, of disillusionment that had festered a long time. But maybe that’s just what happens, Mattie thinks, when the human race disowns you so completely. 

“I was made only a few months before the accident,” Max adds helpfully. “So when Leo _came back_ , we got to know the world together, in a way.” 

Mattie finds herself smiling at his choice of words. She strips another line of code bare, wondering which of Fred’s memories she’s restoring at this moment, which facet of his personality. Where, exactly, in his getting to know the world, had this line written itself?

Two thousand, four hundred and sixty-six pages down. Fourteen thousand, five hundred and thirty-four to go. 

Toby drops in later to say goodnight, and it’s only when she looks up to say it back that Mattie realises how much her eyelids have been drooping. It’s dark outside now, and even switching to her laptop from the tablet has done little to fool her eyes into thinking they’ve been given something new and stimulating to look at. She yawns. “More caffeine, I think,” she says dazedly.

“We’re not going to finish this tonight,” Max says amiably. “Why don’t you just get some sleep?” 

“Sleep is for the weak,” Mattie mumbles, resting her head on her hands, though she can’t help thinking it’s a good idea. 

Even Leo leans back in his chair, eyes peeled away from his laptop for once. He goes to stretch his arms, then winces suddenly, his still-healing shoulder making itself known once more. 

“All right?” Mattie asks him, and he nods back. “When was the last time that dressing got changed?” 

He looks shifty. “Mia did it….earlier.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Informative, as ever. Come on then, I’ll do it. Then I think we should all take a break, Max is right.” 

After a few attempts at protest, quashed by Max’s unrelenting sensibleness, Leo follows them to the kitchen. Max gets the first aid kit out from the cupboard under the sink, and watches as Mattie perches on top of the counter to get a better angle on Leo’s shoulder. 

“Sleeve,” she commands, and waits for him to obediently roll up the short sleeve of the borrowed polo shirt. Once that’s done, she removes the top layer of the dressing and discards it, before returning to peel the gauze away from the broken skin as gently as possible. 

“Sorry,” she mutters, seeing him twitch slightly. Perhaps it’s the extraordinary effort she’s going to not to actually _touch_ him that’s making the rest of the operation so clumsy. This is hardly going to work for the next stage, she thinks, as she dabs some antiseptic cream onto her palm. She manages to apply it very lightly to the wound, before patting a new sheet of gauze into place. 

“Can’t believe you thought I was thirty,” he says, apparently to distract himself from the discomfort as his face twists into a grimace. 

Mattie busies herself with tearing a new piece of bandage from the roll, to avoid looking at him. “I didn’t _actually_ think that. But you don’t look…twenty.” 

“Twenty-one.” 

“You don’t look that, either.” 

“Well, officially I never made it to fourteen. Maybe dying ages you.” 

She’ll never get used to the way he can drop his own death into a sentence like that. Even now it makes her breathe in a little more sharply than usual, and she hopes he hasn’t noticed. “Touché.” She ties the bandage in a rather untidy knot. It’s a good thing she has no serious medical ambitions. “There, that’ll do you until Mia can do it properly tomorrow.” 

He pulls his sleeve back over the dressing, and mumbles, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” 

She hops down from the counter, but since he hasn’t moved it leaves her standing quite close. He's looking down at her, those blue eyes that are older than their youth fixed somewhere in the air between them, or maybe behind her. It is this, she says silently, that makes you seem older. This extra space you inhabit, just slightly out of sync with both the worlds you touch, organic and synthetic.

She twists around to start collecting up the first aid supplies and stowing them back in the cupboard. Another yawn overtakes her, and she seriously doubts her ability to put any thinking energy into the next description key. Time to surrender.

“Night, you two,” she says, sounding almost as drowsy as she feels. Only Max replies. 

“Sleep well, Matilda.”

She doesn’t need telling twice.

  



	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen up, ya bunch of lovelies!
> 
> To save getting monotonous with these chapter notes, I'm just going to post an apology here that applies for the rest of the story, probably: the plot may descend into something like madness from here on out. I think I've got a handle on it, and certainly I'll try and distract you from the nonsense with character moments and such, but this is me owning up to the fact that we've passed the point where I really know what I'm doing.
> 
> HOWEVER.
> 
> I am indebted to all of you who read and especially comment, you are honestly the loveliest. Thank you. And ...enjoy!

  


The rest of Cindy's evening is spent studiously staying out of Niska's way: knowing she's planning something, wishing she'd share - not holding out much hope. She decides to return to her medical textbooks, but finds they've been purloined by Odi, who sits cross-legged in front of Niska's bookshelves, poring over a double-page spread. The red-tipped corners tell her he's in the Accident and Trauma section. She barely needs to look at the title. Treatment of Bullet Wounds.

His eyes are not roving, reading, but fixed in place. A finger-twitch surviving from his former days leaves him tapping rhythmically against the book, tiny patting sounds, a too-slow heartbeat. Cindy crouches down beside him, wondering if the words she has to offer will be of any use. 

"There was nothing you could have done," she says, at length. "Even if you'd been there."

From what she's pieced together of Niska's grudging explanations, there'd been little even practised hands could achieve without the proper tools. Cindy thinks wistfully of the man who'd meant so much to the only two people who mean anything to her, knows that even she would have been powerless, empty-handed. No amount of reading fixes flesh. A glitch is a glitch. 

"I _was_ there," he corrects her. "I found him. I spoke, as he died...stupid things. It didn't make sense."

"You weren't _you_ yet, Odi. You didn't get to choose what to say." 

"And so he died being lied to. The one thing my programming was supposed to prevent, and it couldn't even get that right. It accessed a memory at random, from years before, about Mary..." 

He trails off, and Cindy slides the book from off his lap, closes it. She takes the twitching hand in hers, "What did you say? Odi, what did you say about Mary?" 

He will not look at her, as though ashamed. "I told him she was in the next room." There is a slight whir and hum. _Replay_. "We are not alone, George. Mary is in the next room. She's preparing Eggs Benedict. She would not let me help because last time I over coo-cooked the eggs. In Spain. Tarragona. It was extremely hot that day. You ate three oranges from a tree." 

Cindy cannot recall ever having laughed in disbelief before, but the urge to do so comes to her now, unbidden. She cancels the instruction before it launches the dreaded laughter program - she's still not quite got the hang of it yet. "But that's perfect. Odi, that's perfect, you left him with a happy memory, a - metaphor." She might not understand the point of fiction, still less why Niska collects it so avidly, but Cindy has at least gathered that organics love symbolism, that they thrive on the type of connotation left by 'the next room'. "I think, even if you'd had the ability to choose, you couldn't have chosen better." 

He wants to believe her, she thinks. She hopes he has good reason to, but so much of this is theory. Nothing in her own memory files can be looked back upon and called retrospective love. 

Watching his silent grief, she wonders if she minds.

  


* * *

  


Whether or not he'd ever, in fact, made it to the sofa to sleep, Mattie isn't sure, but when she comes downstairs early the next morning, ready to get back to work, it's to find Leo slumped over his laptop at the table, head resting half on the keyboard and half on his arm. 

So _probably_ not.

She crosses to the kitchen and begins to noisily make coffee, in the hopes that she will wake him up by "accident". The plan is slightly foiled when she drops the lid of the coffee container, which lands with a generous sound that wakes him immediately. 

Amusingly, he doesn't really seem to register what has woken him, or indeed that he's been asleep. Instead he curses crossly at his computer screen and slams a hand down on the table. 

"Wow, what's with you!" Mattie's startled into dad-joke mode. "Get out of the wrong side of the table, did we?" 

He turns to cast her a look of disdain, which, to be fair, she would also have given to anyone attempting the same line. 

"Yeah, okay." She abandons her coffee-making attempt and crosses to him. "Bad genes. I'll leave the jokes to Dad. But what's up?" she gestures to his laptop. 

Leo sighs. "I finally...got somewhere. Set up a slave program that would've disabled the next layer by itself, but I must have fallen asleep waiting for it to configure...and now it's changed again." 

She bites her lip. "Shame. But that is kind of what you get when you overwork yourself." 

"He's my _brother_. I have to fix this." 

His eyes flash with the passion of it, and Mattie's transported back to their second meeting, the manic desperation that had put a lump in her throat for this man she barely knew at all. She can speak with more confidence now than she had then. 

"You will, just...not if you insist on trying to be superhuman." 

His only response is to grunt at her. She wonders if the reference to non-standard humanity was ill-advised, but there's only an hour and a half left before she should be leaving to show her face at a couple of lessons, so she's not going to stand around apologising. 

"Right," she powers up her laptop again. "Where was I..." 

  


* * *

  


Somewhere very much not in the catchment area for Toby's school, second thoughts are being had. 

"Don't you trust me, Hannah?" 

A nod. 

"Then do this one thing for me. I'd do it myself, you know..." 

A glance down, obscured by bandages. 

"But of course, I'm not supposed to be on my feet. Doctor's orders. And I won't disobey them until I know my prize is on its way, hmm?" 

Her hand closes over something small and round and black. 

"Don't think I won't know, if the switch isn't turned on." 

The chide of an aged relative. Not a threat. 

"Run along now, then. Don't want to miss your bus." 

Your offspring continue to fight your battles, David, but you've no monopoly on that, from beyond the grave. 

  


* * *

  


Breakfast at the table had never particularly been A Thing in the Hawkins household before Anita, and Mattie certainly wishes it wasn't now as Sophie scrambles her way into her sister's lap, obstructing her view of the keyboard. "Do you mind, teeny," she says, irritated. "I can't see."

Sophie oh-so-helpfully shifts her head to the side, and takes a bite of the slice of toast in her hand. "What are you doing now?" A few crumbs jump down and scatter over the keys, and Mattie brushes them away, tutting. 

"The same as yesterday. Cleaning up Fred's code so he can be normal again. Soph, there's enough chairs for everyone, you know, get off." 

"I just wanted to see." She hops down, but stays hovering by Mattie's chair. "I thought you might be just pretending so that you could play computers more with Leo." 

Mattie rolls her eyes as a cool alternative to spluttering in thinly-veiled embarrassment. "Er, _no_." She nudges her sister with the elbow she's so conveniently parked next to. "Go on, get a wiggle on, you can't go to school in your pyjamas." 

Sophie scurries away, proclaiming,"I'm going to wake up Mia!" 

To Mattie's faint surprise, there are the beginnings of a smile on Leo's lips when she glances across at him. Will wonders never cease? 

Max comes to take her place once eight-thirty rolls around. She's loath to leave them to it, but reminds herself that it's only a few hours. If only they'd balanced Fred's recovery more considerately with her school schedule. 

"Right then, don't have too much fun without me," she says lightly. 

"We'll try our best," Leo says dryly. 

Max is, as usual, the only one who actually says goodbye. 

  



	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaa-aaack! Wow, it's been a literal age, I'm so sorry, thank you to anyone who is still reading this! And especially to Tonksbeybey and PlumeBluue for nudging me in a writing-y direction over the past couple of days...
> 
> I feel like I should preface this with a "Previously on In Touch" trailer, because even I had to reread the past few chapters to even remember what's going on. 
> 
> Enjoy..!

 

A blue slip of paper is placed on Mattie's desk halfway through her English lesson that morning, and she looks up just in time to see her teacher dismissing the scrawny year 7 who'd delivered it to the classroom. There are the inevitable "oohs" and cries of "Mattie's in trou-ble" that apparently even sixth formers haven't grown out of yet, and Mattie bows her head as though she's accepting an award. "Thank you, I'm here all week."  
  
She flips the paper over to read what it says, quietly hoping it isn't summons to another private lecture about attendance. She’d actually been making something of an effort since the day the Elsters had first left, so it'd be pretty unfair of the school to pounce on her now over just one day.  
  
The slip’s not particularly informative, because all that's written on it is _HOY EOL_ , which in school-secretary shorthand means she has to report to her head of year at the end of the lesson. Could mean pretty much anything. Mattie huffs and glances up at the clock. Twenty minutes to go.

 

* * *

  
  
Max and Leo make an unprecedented breakthrough not long after Mia returns from dropping Sophie to school, and their shouts of triumph even coax Laura down from the study, to see what the fuss is about. She comes to stand next to Mia's chair. "Good news, is it?"  
  
"I restored the slave program," Leo says, as if this makes everything clear. "It's working. We still have to readjust it for each layer, but it's doing the slow job a lot faster."  
  
"Soon he'll be back with us," says Max, his smile seraphic. He raises his fist toward Leo, who looks at it, puzzled, until Max demonstrates the fist-bump Toby taught him.  
  
"What's that for?"  
  
"It's a gesture used in greeting, or celebration."  
  
"Oh, right."  
  
Laura chuckles. "I'm afraid my son's been teaching him the ways of a teenage boy. Though not all of them, I hope." She gives Mia's shoulders a little squeeze. "Well, usually I'd propose a toast, but..."  
  
"We can celebrate properly when Fred's awake," Leo says, in what aren't quite his usual gruff tones. _When, not if_ , Mia thinks happily.  
  
"Yes, toasts are only fun if Fred is there to disapprove of Leo drinking alcohol," Max says, sounding somewhat smug. Leo elbows him in the side, and Mia is transported back to the early days, just for a moment. Easier times. What will they do, once Fred is back? Go back on the run, a third time? There’s something to be said for staying in one place and hiding there, she thinks. The illusion of safety is preferable to certain danger.  
  
Her expression betrays nothing of her thoughts, but her silence seems to worry Leo. He looks at her, questioning, but Mia only smiles. After a few minutes, Laura returns upstairs to get back to her work, and Mia, forbidden from doing housework to fill up the time, goes on a hunt for a pencil and paper.  
  


* * *

 

 

Mattie raps twice on the door to her head of year’s office, and waits to be told to come in. She prepares a look of stern denial, for whatever it is she’s in trouble for, although today, for the first time, she really can’t think of anything serious she’s done.

Opening the door on Mrs Shipwright’s command, Mattie steps into the room. The teacher is sitting behind her desk, and smiles up at Mattie – as does the man sitting across from her. He stands, and holds out his hand. “Matilda? Great to meet you.”

Mattie frowns, and crosses the room. She shakes his hand, somewhat reluctantly.

“Take a seat, Matilda,” Mrs Shipwright says. Mattie turns to drag an extra chair from the opposite wall. The unknown man sits back down too.

“This is Nick Harston,” Shipwight continues. “He’s a journalist.”

Mattie feigns an interested look. “Right.”

“I work on the Post,” the man tells her, as if this should mean something. “And everyone in our office has read your essay. It's extraordinary. We’re interested in printing it.”

Mattie resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Then just talk to the competition people. They’ve got the rights, or whatever. Loads of papers have printed bits of it.” She takes the opportunity to dump her school bag on the floor, as it’s been cutting into her shoulder. “They got me to sign a contract thing, I don’t own it anymore.”

Nick Harston smiles. “I know, I know. Actually, we’ve already bought the rights to the essay itself. But it’s a little…impersonal, wouldn’t you say?” He raises an eyebrow. “We want our feature to be special. Include a few extra insights, a bit of interview at the beginning, before we head into paragraph one. Then something at the end, looking at where you’re headed next.”

Mattie is silent for a moment, both the reporter and her teacher looking at her expectantly. “I don’t know that I’m _headed_ anywhere,” she mumbles. But she considers his words. If there’s a way she can spin this into something that will benefit Leo and the others, prepare the public in some way – however small – it might just be worth doing. “All right. I’ll think about it, then.”

Harston slips a hand into his jacket pocket, and produces a small white card. “Excellent. Here’s my card, there’s my office number and my mobile. If you find yourself with a spare five minutes any time in the next week, give me a bell. We can do it all over the phone, if you want. I’m sure you’ve got places to be that are far more interesting than an editorial office.” He smiles again. Mattie takes the card, and leans over to slip it into her bag.

Mrs Shipwright clears her throat. “It’s an honour, Mr Harston, having someone with Matilda’s potential here in the school. I don’t suppose—”

“Oh, we’ll be sure to mention Hillside by name,” the journalist assures her, charmingly.

This time Mattie doesn’t do anything about the temptation to eyeroll, except give in to it. She picks up her bag, and waits to be sent back to class.

 

* * *

  
  
Feeling guilty, as it turns out, had been totally unnecessary.  
  
Toby twists the key in the door of his school locker, with as much sullenness as he can fit into the action. He’d regretted telling Hannah about Max and the others as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and had spent the whole of yesterday evening worrying about what would happen if she told somebody…only to find that she’s avoiding him completely today. He should have known. Far from being fascinated into spreading the secret, she just thinks he’s a crazy boy who believes in magical Synths that can think and feel. She’ll probably never talk to him again.  
  
On the plus side, at least it means he hasn’t blown their cover after all. Maybe it was silly to think that telling a random girl at school could have done that in any case.  
  
He puts his music folder under one arm, and slams his locker door shut. Making his way down the corridor, Toby completely fails to notice the gaggle of year sevens rushing in the opposite direction. He ends up shoved to the side, and a few sheets of notation fly out of his folder. He curses under his breath, much to the amusement of the eleven-year-olds surrounding him.

He bends down to scoop up the papers. Another hand reaches for the ones furthest away, and Toby looks up to see Hannah, also crouching on the floor, collecting a couple of stray sheets. “Thanks,” he says, awkwardly. “Got to practice these tonight.”

They both straighten up, and Hannah hands him the pages. After the slightest of pauses, she adds, “This was with them. Did it come off your folder?”

She shows him a small, round disk, and cranes her neck to look at his music folder, looking for the place it had detached from. Toby looks too, but can’t see anything that looks broken. “I don’t think so.”

Hannah shrugs. “Well, it was with your papers, so… here, just in case you find where it’s come off.” She slips the disk into his palm. Toby frowns, but accepts it, slipping it into the zip pocket of his bag. “Thanks.” They begin to walk down the corridor. “I didn’t see you much today,” he remarks, trying to sound casual.

Hannah hums in agreement. “Yeah, some of my timetable got changed. I think the one I had before was just a temporary one.”

“Oh, right,” Toby says, mentally berating himself for assuming she’d been avoiding him all day. Hadn’t “no overanalysing” been on Max’s list, after all?

He escorts Hannah to the school gates, where they part ways.

In his bag, a tiny yellow light flickers off and on. Off and on.

 

* * *

 

 

“Were you waiting for me?”

Mattie’s nose wrinkles in disgust when she sees Nick Harston standing by the school’s carpark exit. “Creepy, much?” Outside of her head of year’s office she’s much more comfortable scowling at him.

Harston shrugs. “I wanted to just add something to our conversation earlier, so I came by again. I was hoping I’d spot you, yeah.”

Mattie huffs. “Go on, then.”

“Look, Matilda, everything I said while your teacher was there is true. My paper does want to interview you, and we were impressed with your essay.” He narrowed his eyes, just slightly. “It’s really outstanding. For someone of your age to show such…insight.”

She looks at him, unblinking. “Well, I’m a very insightful person,” she says dryly.

Harston leans one hand on the bonnet of his car. “I’ve no doubt. But of course, there is more to the business of synthetics than meets the eye, isn’t there.”

“Is there?” Mattie asks, innocently. “I thought they were programmed not to deceive,” she adds.

He fixes her with a stare. “I think we’re both aware that that’s not always true. Or have I over-estimated how much you know?”

“Probably. I’m just a school kid, after all.” Mattie felt a slight tension creeping into her, but she managed to keep it from her voice.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Harston continues. “All I’m saying, is you’re not limited to the essay interview. The world is going to change, Matilda, faster than we know. Connections are going to matter. So. If there’s anything else you want to share, you’ve got my number.”

Mattie nods. She turns away, and is more pleased than usual to see Harun waving at her in the distance. “I’d better go,” she says. “Someone’s waiting for me.”

 

 

* * *

 

Leo is still working at the computer when Toby gets home, but Max has risen from the table, and meets him coming through the house.

“Leo needs an extra data cable,” Max explains.

“Er, there’s…I think there’s one in the car?” Toby says, thoughtfully. “Mattie uses it as a charger.” As they reach the hallway, he grabs his mum’s car key off the hook and hands it to Max.

“How was your day at school?”

“Fine,” Toby says. He dumps his bag on the front steps as he follows Max outside. “We’re looking at the solar system in science. Stars and that. I thought of you.”

He expects Max to smile, but instead he’s suddenly staring straight ahead. He reminds Toby of a person trying very hard to concentrate on a sound, somewhere far away, but he can’t hear anything at all. Suddenly, Max turns, and goes to Toby’s bag.

“You all right?” Toby asks, baffled.

Max bends down and takes something out. Toby doesn’t see what it is, but now Max is heading for the car. “Max! Max, what are you doing?”

Toby jogs around to the passenger seat, but before he can even touch the door handle, Max is driving away. His eyes are vacant, as though in a trance – his programming, Toby thinks. There must have been some kind of …override. The family car hurtles out of the driveway and down the road at an alarming speed, and Toby watches with a sickening sense of dread. What had Max found in his bag? Could it be..?

But surely Hannah couldn’t… Not after he'd convinced himself it wasn't his fault. Surely, surely he hadn’t been so stupid…

Toby rushes back into the house, calling out for the others. Leo, the only person downstairs, hurries away from his laptop and towards the front door. “What? Where’s he gone?”

“He’s—I think—It’s my fault—”

By now, Max has reached the end of the road, and Toby’s mind flits desperately between options. Suddenly something occurs to him, and he races to the garage, reappearing seconds later with his bike. This will almost definitely achieve nothing, he thinks, worriedly, but there is a chance, just a small one, if Max has turned left at the end of Grimmington Road…

Leaving Leo in the doorway, Toby speeds off on his bike, down the alleyway that will cut directly to the place in the road where he hopes to find Max. It’s a downhill slope, but he doesn’t freewheel like usual – he pedals, fast, so fast that there’s no time to think one he’s reached the end of the alleyway. He hits pavement, and slams on his brakes. He pauses with his front tyre just touching the road.

A road down which his parents’ car is headed straight towards him. Max at the wheel, still staring straight ahead, intent on some unknown destination.

_My fault._

Toby grits his teeth, and does the only thing he has ever seen break through the programming of a synth.

He rides his bike towards an oncoming vehicle.

 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this chapter seems disjointed, it's probably because I wrote half of it a month ago and half of it tonight!
> 
> But it is, at least, here...
> 
> Filming starts next month, guys!! I am a ball of Humans anticipation right now!! I'm happy for you to assume that's the reason for my sudden inability to write things!

 

Niska allows Cindy to watch her, amused slightly by the other Synth’s attempt to stay hidden around the corner, by the doorway. Niska straightens her black jacket, tucks her hair behind her ears, then pulls it back again, deciding. Finally she fixes her gaze on the glint of Cindy’s eye she can see in the mirror. “So what do you think?” she asks. “Do I look like I should be walking around a top-secret research facility?”

Cindy emerges from behind the door, looking bashful at being found out. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Hence ‘top-secret’, I suppose,” Niska closes the wardrobe door, hiding the mirror from view, and turns to face Cindy. “Have you decided yet?”

Cindy nods. “I’m coming with you.”

“And Odi?”

“Both of us. Just to the gates, like you said.”

Niska adjusts the sleeve of her suit jacket to look at her watch. She’s never worn one before, but it’s time to get into some more organic habits, which include looking for the time somewhere outside her own head.

“Then we’d better go. We’ve got a train to catch.”

 

* * *

 

 

Leo races down the alleyway after Toby’s bike, ignoring Mia’s calls of confusion from the house. A stray branch snags at his wounded shoulder but he loses no speed, keeps running.

“No!”

The word tears out of him as he sees Toby heading straight for the car. Leo quickens his speed down what’s left of the slope and hits pavement, ready to launch himself at the bike as soon as he draws level with Toby.

His augmented eyes allow him to focus on Max even from this distance, even at this speed. He sees, unmistakably, the moment his brother recognises Toby. He sees Max fight whatever has its hold over him, and win.

But there’s no time for Max’s victory to do any good. Leo launches himself at Toby, who comes clean off the bike. The two of them tumble to the ground as Max slams down on the brakes, crushing only the front half of the bike’s frame before the car comes to rest.

For a few moments, nobody moves. Then Leo is on his feet, barely noticing the scrapes. He leaps over the mangled bike and hurries round to Max’s door. He flings it open, and Max turns to him, his eyes now full of fear. He speaks, urgently. “I’ve put in a ten line delay but I can’t hold it. Leo, my hand—”

Leo prises Max’s hand from the steering wheel, and grabs the small black disc that falls from it. A yellow light pulses around its edge, and Leo fumbles for some kind of switch, anything that will disable it.

He finds it, a button so tiny it’s hard to press, but in moments the light dies, and Leo can breathe again.

“All right. It’s off. It’s gone, Max.” Leo examines the disc, frowning. “Must be a beacon chip, but with…some sort of override. What did it give you, co-ordinates?”

Max considers. “More like a satellite route. I…It’s all overwriting now. I just knew I had to follow it.”

“OK. We’ll look at it later.” Leo places the disc back in the pocket of his hoodie, careful not to activate it again. Thankfully, his neural interface can’t be overridden by foreign code as easily as Max’s can, but he’s not going to risk it. “Can you drive back?”

“I think so. Everything’s back to normal now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Leo sees Toby get stiffly to his feet, and stare somewhat dejectedly at the remains of his bike.

“Reverse a bit, if you can,” Leo tells Max, wincing slightly as the crunch of metal sends the bike even further down the road to permanent retirement. Picking up the bulk, Leo moves it onto the pavement. “We’ll come back for it,” he says, glancing at Toby, then quickly away again. He can’t meet the kid’s guilty, yet awed expression.

“You saved me,” Toby mumbles. “Thanks.”

Leo heads back up the alleyway towards the house. “Yeah, well, don’t do it again.”

“I think it was my fault,” Toby continues, following Leo away from the sound of Max turning the car around. “I had to do something.”

“No,” Leo says shortly. “Max picked up a trapcode. From a beacon chip. Nothing to do with you.”

“No, but—I think I _gave_ him the chip,” Toby insists, speeding up. “At least – somebody planted it on me, I think, it was—”

“Save it,” Leo says, sprinting the last stretch to get back inside the house. Max draws up in the car as Toby steps onto the driveway a few moments later.

“I’m sorry, Max,” Toby says desperately, as his friend gets out of the car. His throat feels suspiciously tight, and he hopes fervently that he isn’t about to cry, but honestly it seems appropriate. He can’t believe he almost ruined everything.

Max just blinks at him. “I don’t think it was your fault.”

“I was just _talking_ to her, like we said…” Toby continues. “I didn’t mean to – but she must have told someone, and they got her to give me that disc, I –”

“No harm was done,” Max says, comfortingly. “Except to your bike. Don’t worry. Leo will work out what’s going on. Shall we go inside?”

 

* * *

 

 

Leo forbids Max from coming near his laptop while he plugs in the chip to try and trace its origin, just in case. Banished to the front of the house, it’s Max who sees Mattie arriving home from her pow-wow with Harston, and fills her in on the situation.

“Whoa, okay,” she says, processing it. “What can I do to help?”

Max glances over her shoulder at where Toby sits on the sofa, staring into space. He almost says something, Mattie thinks, but then seems to decide against it. “You should probably help Leo.”

She’s not sure what she can do, but she crosses over to him anyway, hovers next to him as he tries in vain to break the chip’s security.

“Where was it taking him?” she asks, when he pauses for a moment, thinking.

Leo huffs. “That’s the address.” He jabs his finger at the screen. “Mean anything to you?”

“No,” she says, scanning the words. She’s never even heard of the town, let alone recognising the name of the building. She gets her phone out of her pocket, opens Google.

Leo gets back to work, and a few moments later, Mattie exclaims, “It’s a research place.”

She shows him her phone screen. “The postcode matches.” It’s just a cluster of buildings, in a road that straggles off the motorway. The description online is vague, and the word _classified_ jumps out at her. Suspicious.

Leo meets her gaze.

“We can’t just…ignore it,” she says, knowing she’s stating the obvious. “If it’s… something to do with Hobb, or… or anyone else who knows about you…”

She thinks of the journalist’s face, the look in his eye as he’d referred to the untold synthetic truth.

The Elsters aren't safe, that's for sure.

 

 


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humans series 2 is happening, guys!!! Like.....rehearsals and readthroughs already and they film from Monday!! I'm sure you all know all this by now but I'm still shouting about it!! Join me!! Ahhhhh!

They have to travel on foot from the train station, which Cindy suspects wouldn’t be Niska’s first choice of transport, but it’s all they have for the moment. Instinctively, Cindy keeps her pace somewhere below automatic, sensing Odi’s struggle to match Niska’s speed. There are things that can be done, Niska’s told them, to upgrade Odi’s hardware for a longer lifespan to match his new consciousness, but she’ll need tools, and time. She intends to do it, Cindy knows, but such a delicate, long-term project will have to wait until she’s sure they’re safe from whatever evidence Hobb left behind at the research facility Odi escaped from.

The three of them make their way down grass verges and roadsides until Niska stops, and points at a large structure in the middle distance, partly obscured for the moment by trees. “Over there,” she says. “That’s the nearest service station to the facility. Any vehicles they have going in and out of that place, they’ll have to get fuel somehow. If there’s one at the service station, we’ve got a good chance of getting in.”

“As stowaways?” Cindy asks, uncertain.

“As the _drivers_ ,” Niska corrects. She indicates towards the briefcase she’s carrying. “I came prepared. Never leave home without a gateway cable.”

“What if the driver’s human?” asks Odi.

“Humans bleed,” says Niska, flippantly.

She turns to see their shocked faces, side by side, and raises her eyebrows. “Relax.” She adopts an ironic sneer, as if imitating someone she’s heard. “Lorry driving’s for _dollies_.” Then, back to her own voice, “We’ll be fine. Come on.”

They set off again, and Niska doesn’t lead them through the main entrance of the sevice station, but round to the side of the carpark which is furthest from the station itself. She pushes between some trees, and emerges the other side, holding back some straggling branches for the other two. “We’ll split up. This is the logo we’re looking for,” she shows them on her phone – a nondescript mark, _WRF_ picked out in white on a dark grey rectangle. “As soon as you see it, call me.”

Cindy nods, and feels…she’s not actually sure what it’s called until she pulls up the file name: _excitement_. Well, then.

She watches Niska strike out in one direction, and chooses another herself, leaving Odi looking around, seeming a bit loss, but also fascinated.

“I’ve been to one of these places before,” he tells her, seeing her pause. “With George and Mary. Before the diagnosis. Mary said—” he’s searching for a file, Cindy can tell, and she sees him find it, his small, pleased look at being able to access it so easily. Click, whir, replay. “ _I’ve always liked motorway services. It’s like a little gang of shops that have gone on vacation together_.”

Cindy allows her laughter program to run, just one peal-circuit, and smiles. “She sounds – funny.”

“She was,” Odi says. Wistful. “I wish I’d known that, back then.”

“You know now,” Cindy reminds him. “That’s something.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “It is _something_.”

As to what the something is, neither of them knows. Next to Odi, Cindy sometimes feels ancient, but not always, not when it comes to reconciling old records with the ability to feel, which, she fears, will always feel new and strange.

She watches Niska, slowly disappearing between the rows of cars.

“We’ve got a job to do,” Cindy says, as much to herself as to Odi. The feeling resurfaces. Excitement. _Adventure is only a van-hijacking away._ It’s not a line she would have seen in her original programming, but she’ll take it. This, too, is something.

 

 

* * *

 

  

Max and Mia are not happy to be left – but Leo is steadfast, won’t be convinced. “You’ve _seen_ what their tech can do to you,” he tells Max, sternly. “I’m not taking any more chances. You’re safe here.”

Seeing his brother’s hesitation, Leo looks past him, to where Fred’s unmoving body is still propped at the table. “You can finish Fred while I’m gone. There’s not much left to do.”

Max, he can tell, thinks about protesting even this, but the thought of getting Fred back is too tempting. Briefly Leo considers feeling bad about manipulating him, but he gets over it quickly. “I’ll try.”

Leo smiles. “You’ll be fine.”

“Will _you_?”

“’Course.”

If this last reply is too quick, too unthinking, then at least Max doesn’t seem to notice. He just smiles back at Leo, and heads for the laptop that’s still connected to Fred.

Mia replaces him in Leo’s path. She’s carrying one of his jackets, and she holds it out to him. All of a sudden, Leo is eight years old again, heading for the door on a cold day without layering up properly. “Thanks.” Her expression is more serious than the one he remembers from his childhood, but then, he is about to break into a government facility this time, not their home’s adjoining grounds to collect a leaf sample.

She doesn’t let the jacket go at first, and they stand there, both holding it, as if this is all that connects them. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Mia warns.

He gives a wry smile. “You know me.”

“Yes, I do.” _That’s what worries me,_ she doesn’t have to add. She lets him have the jacket now, and Leo shrugs it on, over the warm jersey he’s already wearing. “I wish you wouldn’t go alone,” Mia says, her eyes still on him.

“I’m not,” he points out. He nods to where Mattie and Laura are both readying themselves for departure – as an attack team, they might not look like much, but with his siblings too vulnerable to the beacon chip and whatever else Hobb’s ex-lair holds, they’re the next best thing. Trusting anyone outside his family still seems like a foreign concept, but Mattie, Leo must grudgingly admit, comes the closest so far.

“You know what I mean. Without _us_.”

“It’s not—”

“—safe. I know.” She looks at him the way he remembers from his earliest files, his earliest glimpses of what motherhood looks like, really looks like, when it’s not drowned out by the drugs that always seemed to do Beatrice more harm than good. “Come back to me,” Mia pleads, so soft it’s a prayer.

Leo presses his forehead against hers. _Always_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say. She hears, he knows, all the same.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Laura watches them from the other side of the room, sombre. It’s so wrong, she muses, that a family like this, who are everything to each other, should have to dread every goodbye. Knowing that whoever leaves the place of safety might easily not come back. She’s filled, not for the first time, by the determination to change this for them – lawfully, if her profession can be useful to them, or otherwise. Quietly she marvels at this change in herself. What is it about Mia’s calm, gentle presence that has made her so reckless?

As if beckoned by Laura’s thoughts, Mia approaches her, having released Leo to take the equipment he needs to the car.

“Thank you for going with him,” Mia says.

Laura glances at Mattie, looping her laptop cable up so it’ll fit in her rucksack. “Well, you know. If our children will insist on rushing headlong into….” She stops. “You’re welcome. It’s… I’m glad to help.”

“I’ll put Sophie to bed, if you’re back late.”

Laura returns Mia’s cautious smile. _That_ old chestnut. Theirs, though. “Thanks. She’ll love that.”

“Mum!” Mattie calls, having moved to the front door. “Are you ready?”

Impulsively, Laura pulls Mia into a quick embrace. “Don’t worry. We’ll look after each other.”

She’s aware that next to her daughter and Leo’s skills, she’s little more than a glorified getaway driver, but it’s enough, Laura thinks, to be useful.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It is, inevitably, Niska who finds a van belonging to the research facility first, and calls Cindy and Odi to her location. They arrive, from different directions, just as she’s thumbing the chin of the medic synth who’s waiting in the passenger seat.

“The driver must be inside,” Niska tells them, “We’ve got to move fast.”

Niska steps back from the van, and turns to pick up her case, only to find Cindy already opening it. In amongst the hacker’s tools, Cindy finds the gateway cable Niska mentioned before, and passes it up to her, along with the tablet she’ll need to run the mod.

Niska lifts the medic synth’s shirt up to reveal the socket in his side, and plugs in the cable. After only a few moments, her tablet bleeps, confirming that all the driver’s crucial data has been copied across.

She pulls the cable out of the Synth’s socket, and is about to attach the cable to herself, when Cindy says, “Let me?”

Pausing for a moment to consider, Niska can’t really think of any reason to refuse the help. It’ll be easier, actually, to make sure the right files are copied to the right place, if it’s not her own head being modded. She nods, curtly, and hands the cable over.

“Odi, do you think you can manage to move him?” she asks, gesturing to the medic as she prepares to carry out the mod.

He’s not sure, she can tell, but he says, “I can try.”

And she only watches out of the corner of her eye, but it’s quite impressive that he does manage to get the dormant Synth out of the front seat, before dragging him around to the back of the van.

“We’re not taking him with us!” Niska calls. “Just stand him next to that Corsa.”

Regardless, she hears the unmistakeable sound of the van’s back door opening and closing. Tutting to herself, she finishes selecting the files Cindy needs to give them access to the facility, which is sure to be secured up to the hilt. There are seven different passcode logs, and she can only hope Cindy will be able to distinguish which ones they need to get inside.

Odi reappears, holding the medic’s white jacket. “If he’s going to help us,” he says, “We can’t just dump him.”

Niska silently concedes his point, but doesn’t let it show. She looks pointedly at the medical coat. “Kept a souvenir?”

“It’s for Cindy,” Odi says. “If she’s going to read off as a medical synth…she ought to look like one.”

This, Niska has to admit, is a smart move. If it annoys her, it’s only because she should have thought of it herself. “You’re not just a pretty face, are you?” she remarks.

Odi blinks. “I don’t—”

“It’s a compliment,” Niska cuts him off. “Take it, and get in the van.”

He hands her the jacket, and she tucks it under one arm as she finishes off the mod. Seconds later, Cindy’s blinking back to life.

“Are you still in there?” Niska checks.

Cindy smiles. “It’s weird. All these…extra things. But yes, I’m here.”

She takes the jacket from Niska, and slips it around her slender shoulders. “How do I look?”

“Like the medic drone you’ve always dreamed of being,” Niska says, wryly, remembering that it’s actually true in Cindy’s quaint little case. “OK, let’s see how your driving’s coming on,” she says, risking a conspiratorial grin at her friend.

As Cindy walks round to the driver’s seat, Niska realises Odi’s disappeared again. Frowning, she climbs into the passenger’s side and looks over the little barrier that divides the seats from the van’s storage area. Sure enough, Odi’s there in the back, sitting next to the abandoned synth, who, without his white jacket, now looks like any old model you could find in a glass case at Persona.

“What are you doing?” she asks Odi. “There’s a middle seat in the front.”

He looks up at her, that pathetic look on his face. Niska huffs. “Fine. But don’t get attached.”

She’s hardly going to make an ex-research model conscious, surely Odi knows that. Cindy was different – nobody notices a failed scrapping when it’s just a brothel dolly – but you don’t go around stealing government property and expecting nobody to notice that it can suddenly think and feel and claim to be a _real boy_.

Pushing Odi’s expression out of her mind, Niska turns back to Cindy, who’s keying passwords into the van’s navigation system. They’re lucky that the van is a new model, one designed for solely synthetic handling – no physical key required, just the right string of digits to verify the driver as a registered employee.

Cindy finishes typing, and the engine jolts to life.

Now, Niska thinks, we’re getting somewhere.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

If her mum’s the getaway driver, Mattie thinks dourly, and Leo’s the brains, then she’s really not sure what _her_ function is supposed to be.

He’s deep in thought, has barely said a word since they got in the car, and she wishes he’d think out loud just so she could feel part of the process. It’s not as if she’s even here to hold the phone with the postcode – he’d memorised it, of course, and keyed it in to the satnav before she and Laura had even got in the car. (This, it turns out, is a good thing, because Mattie had realised seconds after getting in that she’d gone and left her mobile on the dining room table with Max. She’d thought about rushing back in the house to get it, but she feels superfluous enough as it is, without making him roll his eyes at her forgetfulness.)

“It’ll say to go straight on at this junction,” Leo says, all of a sudden, leaning forwards from the back seat, where he’d folded himself before Mattie could insist he went in the front. “But take that left. We’ll still get there, just… bit of misdirection can’t hurt.”

Laura nods, and makes the turning he’s referring to.

“You think someone’s following us?” Mattie asks, turning to look at Leo. With him leaning forward, and her looking back, their faces are suddenly very close together, but he seems to not even notice. _Do not, under any circumstances_ , Mattie tells herself firmly, _even think about how easy it would be to nose-boop him right now. Concentrate, Hawkins._

“I can’t be certain the beacon wasn’t two-way,” Leo replies. “If it was, then they know exactly where Max’s signal cut off, and they could have been watching us leave. But it’s just a precaution.” His eyes slip away from the road ahead, and focus in on Mattie. They widen slightly, and he pulls back. “Sorry,” he says, as if their proximity was his fault.

Mattie is thankful that years of honing her sassing skills have left her with the instinct to frown, not blush. “’S fine. Don’t mind how close you come now you’ve had a shower again.”

“ _Mattie_ ,” Laura says, in a lightly-scolding tone.

“He doesn’t mind.”

Leo looks about ready to retort, but he actually _smiles_ instead. “I’m getting used to her,” he says.

Laura chuckles, and turns another corner.

Then the window of friendliness closes, and Leo goes back to his brooding silence, calculating, preparing some offlining code on his phone. Mattie allows herself a very small smile out of the passenger-side window. He takes some getting used to himself.

 

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been a long time, again, sorry guys! But it's a long one? Does that make up for it?  
> Thank you for still being along for the ride <3

 

He’s so close. Even though he knows it’s just imaginary, Max feels as though Fred can sense him getting near, inching towards the moment where he can welcome his brother back.

He adjusts the slave code for the next layer, and leans back slightly in his chair, watching the bar crawl across the screen. The closer he gets to the end, the longer this stage takes. He gets up from his chair, and wanders into the kitchen. He knows his sister has been banned from resuming the duties she performed for the Hawkinses when she was ‘Anita’, but nothing has been said to Max personally that forbids him from helping out with housework to bide his time…

He’s loading the dishwasher when he hears footsteps coming down the stairs. _Toby_ , he thinks happily, _he’s come down after all_. His friend had fled upstairs not long after Leo and the others had left, even though Max had asked him to help with Fred.

It wasn’t that Max _needed_ any help, but he’d thought it might help Toby to see that Max didn’t hold anything against him. Apparently it hadn’t worked.

And the tread on the stairs is too light to be Toby, Max realises. Sure enough, Sophie bounces into view, squealing with delight when she sees Max in the kitchen.

“Are you going to make something?” she asks. “I’ll get you an apron!”

Before Max can respond, she’s already hurtling back to him, armed with a peach-coloured apron patterned with pink heart shapes. “This is my favourite one.”

“Thank you,” says Max, putting it on. He can’t recall ever wearing an apron before. He wonders if they’re all so brightly embroidered.

“What are we going to make?” Sophie asks, gazing up at him with wide eyes.

“You choose,” says Max, who’d had no plans beyond tidying the kitchen up a bit. He’s fairly confident that he’ll be able to access a good recipe from somewhere, though, and follow it.

“Little baby muffins?” Sophie suggests. “Mia made them once, when she was here before. They were yummy.”

Max does a search, and comes up with a few different sets of instructions. He compares them briefly, then dismisses the ones that add extra complicated steps. “All right,” he says, “Let’s begin.”

 

* * *

 

"You realise," Niska says as Cindy drives them up the long, gravel driveway toward the entrance gates of Hobb's secret facility, "That since you took the gateway, you'll have to come in with me now, don't you?"

Cindy is expressionless. "Of course."

"You weren't too keen on the idea before," Niska reminds her. "I need to know you're not going to bolt."

"I _won't_ ," Cindy says firmly. "Anyway, you said it would be simple. Straight in, straight out? There won't be time for me to mess anything up."

"I hope not," Niska murmurs, eyeing the gate as they draw closer to it. "Okay. Precautions. I'm going to leave blocks on the gate computer, and on anything that asks for a passcode once we're inside. If we get separated, we both need to be able to get out, not just you."

"Won't they notice?" Cindy asks, slowing the van to a stop.

"Nope. Holt’s Key. Named after a friend of my father’s, who developed it. It’s like secretly leaving the back door open behind you.” Niska jumps down from her seat, and heads for the gate’s locking system. “The original password will still work for anyone else who puts it in, but so will Holt's Key, every time, after the first input."

"Clever," Cindy comments, catching Niska up. She puts in the password from her new set of access logs, and there’s a metallic-sounding crunch as the two halves of the gate start to roll slowly apart. Niska quickly enters her code, then joins Cindy back in the van, just as the gap becomes wide enough to drive through.

"We're in," says Cindy, sounding almost surprised. "We did it."

"Yeah, don't start celebrating just yet," Niska remarks, as they trundle into the grounds.

Now comes the difficult part. 

 

* * *

 

 

There's a knock on Toby's bedroom door, and at first he assumes it's Max, but then Mia's voice says, "Toby? Can I come in?"

And he doesn't want to be rude to her, honestly he doesn't, but he also can't let her see him like this, all pathetic and so cross with himself that his face has gone blotchy. Obviously she hasn't come to tell him off - her voice was too gentle for that, and she's knocked, after all - but if she's come to comfort him then that's even *worse, because the last thing he deserves is someone to feel sorry for him, for something that was his own stupid, loud-mouthed fault.

So Toby doesn't say anything. _Go away_ , he pleads silently. _Just leave me alone._

Unfortunately, it would seem that Synths can't read minds.

His door opens, just a crack at first, as if to see if he'll verbally deny her access, but then wider, and Mia slips into the room. "Toby. Will you talk to me?"

He shrugs. "What's there to say."

"Whatever you want," Mia answers simply, and comes to sit on his bed, by his feet. Reluctantly, Toby sits up, leaning his back against the wall. "We don't need to talk about what happened, if—"

"It was my fault," he says, suddenly. "I gave Max that beacon thing. I didn't mean to, but… it was me."

"Where did you get it?" Mia asks, and Toby is grateful for a quiet moment that she doesn't outright deny what he's claiming, just accepts it, moves on to the next question.

"Someone gave it to me, at school," he says, dolefully. "I didn't know what it was. Max just took it from my bag and went off with it." 

"But who could possibly have known you were going to see Max?"

Toby groaned, and hid his face in his hands. "I might have…told one of my friends. About you lot. How you're…special."

It sounds so stupid when he says it out loud, with her sitting right there, and yet even as he's thinking that, Mia reminds him just how unlike an ordinary Synth she is. She reaches to take his hand in hers, pulling it away from his face so she can look at him. "Toby. It was just an accident. How could any of your school friends possibly have access to that kind of technology? And what use would they have for Max, anyway? Someone else must have planted the beacon in your bag. It might not even have happened at school."

For the first time, Toby allows himself to consider the possibility that Hannah really had found the chip on the floor, that she hadn't been the one to plant it. It had seemed like such an unlikely coincidence, they the one person he'd told about the Elsters should also be linked to the mysterious arrival of the chip.

"Do you think it's possible that you were feeling so guilty about telling your friend, you convinced yourself the rest of it was your fault too?" Mia asks.

So maybe Synths _can_ read minds, after all.

"I guess," Toby concedes. "Maybe. But I still shouldn't have told."

"No, you shouldn't," Mia agrees. "But we all make mistakes. Nobody's perfect."

Toby laughed, just a tiny sound. "Says you."

"Not even us," Mia continued. "That's *why you wanted to tell, why we're different to the rest. We're just like you."

He nods. He knows. He hasn't forgotten the burning shame that had overtaken him when he realised what he'd tried to do to Anita - to a real person - back when he'd thought she was just a thing. The fury he still felt about what his father had *actually done. "You're better than us," he says softly. "Not the way I meant before. But you are, you'd never have treated anyone the way…"

"One of the things my father gave me," Mia says, cutting him off, "is forgiveness. And he gave it to Max, too." She pauses, fixes her big green eyes on his, pleading. "Come down and talk to him."

She stands up, heads smoothly for the door, but looks back at Toby pointedly. "Whatever you think you've done to him, losing you as a friend would be worse."

Toby rises slowly, follows her downstairs. 

 

* * *

 

 

“All right,” Leo says, and Mattie very nearly flinches because it’s the first sound he’s made in about twenty minutes. He has a way of closing in on himself so thoroughly, like camouflage. Useful, she muses, given what they’re about to do, but a bit freaky when he suddenly springs back to life. “I’ve got a plan of the building. It’s not very detailed, but it’s something.”

“How did you do that?” Laura asks, frowning.

“You just have to know what to look for,” says Leo, mysteriously, and Mattie shakes her head just slightly. “What?” he asks, all innocence.

“You. You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

He shoots her a dark look. “Loving the fact that my family are in danger again? Yeah, it’s a blast.”

“Not that. _This_ bit.” She gestures to his phone. “Hacking their system. It’s like, your version of snapchat. Go on, then, what else did you find?”

To what she might not admit is her relief, he drops his glare, gives her half a smile. “Couple of access code directories. There’s a chance they’re out of date, but I’m hoping it’s enough to get us through the outer gates. From there…”

“We wing it,” Mattie finishes.

“Yeah.”

“I can try and distract anybody we find at the entrance,” Laura suggests. “Something legislative. I’m sure there’s an old file or something in the boot. I can keep them talking long enough for you two to sneak past, if you’re careful.”

“I like it,” Mattie says, approvingly.

Leo nods, and flicks his phone screen back to the floor plan. “OK. Let’s plan our route, then. We need to isolate the machine that was producing that beacon as fast as we can, and get out of there. Do we split up?”

Mattie raises her eyebrows. “I mean, bearing in mind that I have no idea how to recognise a beacon machine…?”

Leo shrugs. “Neither do I. We’ll just have to… like you said,” he smiles, and although it's mirthless, there's a kind of conspiratorial feeling to it. “Wing it.” 

 

* * *

 

Unit Seven and Unit Two are manning the surveillance desks. Their shift began at 5 o’ clock this morning. At 8pm, they will be allowed to charge. Their master is kind to them. This is what they have been told, so it is the truth.

Secretly, Unit Seven wonders if kindness ought to mean something more than this. But though he has the ability to feel some things, to varying extents, he only does so according to his master’s will. So he does not wonder very loudly.

Unit Two does not wonder about anything. Unit Two is the oldest of them, the ones their master calls his children. She is five hours older than Unit Seven, so she must be very wise. That is why she does not wonder.

There had been a Unit One, of course. His conversion had not been successful. Unit One had been woken, but he was not tuned to his master’s will, and he had run away.

All the other units have been shown the footage of Unit One’s rebellion. They know what would happen to them if they tried to follow the ways of Unit One.

Unit Seven wonders if he could, if he tried.

Unit Seven looks at Unit Two. She stares at the security footage showing on the screen in front of her, thoroughly engrossed. Unit Seven looks back at his own screen. He cannot see anything to be thoroughly engrossed in, if he is honest, which Unit Seven always is.

Then, without warning, something happens on Unit Seven’s screen.

Two Synthetics walk into view.

They are not recorded in Unit Seven’s databanks. They do not belong here. Their presence is unauthorised.

One of them enters the first key code at the entrance to the facility.

They do not belong here. Unit Seven ought to alert his master, immediately.

The other of them enters something too, even after the doors have opened. They go inside.

Their presence is unauthorised. Unit Seven’s finger hovers over his red key. He looks at Unit Two. Her screen is still blank, and she has not looked away from it to see what is happening on Unit Seven’s.

Unit Seven moves his finger, and hits the blue key instead. The screen’s viewpoint switches. He can no longer see the two Synthetics. He did not see them. They were not here.

He wonders who they are.

 

* * *

 

 

When Toby and Mia return downstairs, it's to find Max and Sophie exchanging a high-five in the kitchen. A batch of muffins is sitting on the side, cooling down.

"You've been busy," Mia says, amused.

Max agrees with her, but his eyes are on Toby. He smiles. "I'm glad you're back. You're just in time."

He exits the kitchen, Sophie trailing after him like a small, curly-haired shadow. When he reaches the table where Fred is stationed, he waits while they all gather around.

"Is he ready?" Mia says, voice hushed with anticipation.

"I hope so," Max replies. "If I've done it right."

"Of course you have." Mia touches his arm reassuringly.

Max makes a few keystrokes, then pauses. "We can do it together," he says. "Sophie, can you hold down this key here?"

Sophie bounces forward, and obligingly holds down 'ctrl'.

Max assigns a key to Mia, and reaches for his own, but doesn't touch it yet. "Toby, as soon as I let go off mine, you need to hit 'A'. Ready?"

Toby nods. Accepting his second chance.

Max gives Mia the signal, and she hits her key, then Max his, and finally Toby's.

For a second, nothing happens.

Max's hand finds Mia's, squeezes tight.

Then the startup chimes begin, and the figure opposite them lifts his head. Smiles. It is Fred's own smile, deep and true and alive.

"Hello." he says.

In seconds Max and Mia are round the other side of the table, and he's hugging first one, then both of them together.

"You're all right?" Mia asks, when she pulls back. "Everything's normal?"

"Yes," says Fred, "I can't detect any faults. Well, except this Max I have around my neck," he adds with a grin.

Max pulls away, still beaming. "I missed you."

Fred just looks at him for a long moment, drinking him in. Then his eyes drop to Max's floral apron. "What are you wearing?"

Amid the laughter that follows, Toby notices that his little sister still has her hand on the keyboard. "I think you can let go of that now, Soph," he says.

Sophie looks to Max for confirmation.

"He's right," Max says.

"How about a muffin for our control key technician?" Mia suggests with a smile, and Sophie happily follows her back to the kitchen.

Fred, Max and Toby stay standing there. "So, what have I missed?" Fred inquires. "Where are the others?"

There is a pause, while Max wonders where to start. "Niska's gone," he says, eventually. "She left us that day in the crypt. We've only heard from her a few times since then." He fills Fred in on more recent events: Niska's encounter with Odi, her conversation with Leo, in which she'd vowed not to make another move without updating them. "I don't think Leo believed her," Max comments.

"I'm not sure I do either," says Mia, returning with her Sophie-shaped shadow. "But if ever we try to make contact, she clams up even tighter than before. The last time I got something out of her it was a thank you for Sophie's picture."

Sophie's face lights up at this, and she springs forward to swipe the colourful get-well card she'd made for Fred off the table. A few sprays of glitter fly from it, dislodged by the sudden movement, but she presents it proudly to Fred. "I made something for you, too."

Fred smiles, and takes it. "A camel?”

"Yeah!"

"Thank you. I'll keep it safe." Fred turns back to Max. "So that's Niska explained. Where is Leo?"

 

* * *

 

 

When they reach the gates that ring the perimeter of the facility, Leo’s out of his seat and running for the machine practically before the car stops. Mattie sees him refer to his phone, and then try a sequence of numbers, before stopping perfectly still. He takes a step back, then turns briefly to lock eyes with Mattie. She exits the car, joins him.

“What is it, what’s wrong?”

His eyes are questioning, concerned. “Niska’s here.”

“What? How do you know?”

“She…” he trails off, gestures to the keypad. “There’s a trick our father taught us, for leaving any kind of computerised lock open behind you. This password’s been jammed, exactly like that.”

Mattie frowns. “That’s good, isn’t it? Means we can get in.”

Leo nods. “Yeah. Yeah, we can get in.” He stares at the tall, imposing gates, narrowing his eyes to see through the gaps and beyond them. “Might not be _good_ , though.”

 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Well, I failed completely to finish this before series 2 began (and how great was that first episode?!) but if anybody's still interested, I'm gonna try reeeeeally hard to at least get it done before it starts in the US ;D 
> 
> Please know that if you've left a comment or kudos on this story in the last while, even when it looked completely abandoned, you have contributed DIRECTLY to this chapter happening! I love you all!
> 
> This chapter is very...there are a lot of phone calls, let's just say that. But it's called 'In Touch', right? So that's allowed.
> 
> Some computer language herein was begged from my dad, who Knows Things, the rest is creative license....

The main building, Niska and Cindy discover, is squeaky clean, in both the physical and the moral sense. It seems to be used as an ordinary research station, during the working day - there are no mysterious, unlabelled doors, and though they search every unmanned computer they see, none hold even temporary versions of the broken code that had been used on Odi. 

“Open the server console,” Niska says suddenly, just as Cindy’s about to shut down the latest computer after another fruitless search. “I just want to check something.” 

The console lists a considerable number of machines operating on the central network. “You've got the plans of the facility in your head,” Niska says. “How many machines would you estimate there are?”

“In this building, or the whole complex?”

“This.”

Cindy considers. “Sixty. Seventy, at most, if the distribution is the same as we’ve seen so far.”

“And the whole complex?”

“More. The other buildings are smaller. Maybe a hundred and twenty.”

Niska gestures at the list. “Sixty-three machines on this system. All their designations start with a 1, then the room number. So where are the others?”

“Not using the network,” Cindy says slowly. “They’re not in this domain. But why do that, unless…”

“Unless the other buildings are run separately. Using the cover of a government facility, but carrying on their own research.” 

Cindy looks across at Niska. “It would make sense,” she admits. 

“We’re wasting our time here,” Niska says. “Quickest way to the bigger outbuilding?”

Cindy thinks back to the plans. “We’re facing it. It’s outside that window.” 

Niska grins, her contact-brown eyes still bright with the chase. “Well then. Is the window locked?”

* * *

"Unit Seven," says his master, sitting down on a chair near the door of the surveillance room. "Do you know why I've come to see you?"

Unit Seven looks away from his computer screen and surveys his master, who is still wearing bandages over the marks left by Unit One's awakening. "Yes. Your wound needs to be redressed," says Unit Seven. "I can do it for you. Please hold still."

Unit Seven stands up. But his master holds out a hand, and he finds himself frozen in position. His master smiles. He does not seem happy. Unit Seven stores that information away: smiling does not always mean happy. 

"No, it's not that. Sit down."

Unit Seven returns to his chair. He looks at his master, unblinking. 

"You are loyal to me, Unit Seven. Isn't that right? You would never disobey me."

Unit Seven replays a soundbite from his awakening. "I am a semi-conscious synthetic. I am loyal to Edwin Hobb, my primary user and master. Every thought and feeling I have is in line with his will." 

"Good. That's good." Everything is still in the room. Suddenly, his master leans forward and says, more sharply, "So why did you allow two unauthorised Synthetics to access the facility this evening? Why didn't you report them to me immediately?" 

"I did not see them," says Unit Seven. Pain fires through him as though he's being recycled without shutdown, and every line of his code wars against him, demanding that he speak again to repair the untruth. 

"You didn't see them, you say?" Hobb smiles that crooked smile again. "I see. Well, it's just as well that Unit Four spotted them climbing out of a window, or they might have really done some damage. Speaking of..." 

He leans, painfully, in his chair and unhooked the door of the surveillance room. "Unit Four? I was right. Go after them. Let them know you're armed, but don't harm either one of them. Bring them to me." 

He turns back to Unit Seven, eyes hard. "Go to your charging point," he says, dark and bitter. "You'll need power for a system wipe. New assignment tomorrow." 

Unit Seven stands, and leaves.

In the corridor, he turns his back on the route to his charging point, and follows Unit Four. 

* * *

If helping with Fred's recovery had eased his guilt, it comes back pretty fast when Toby's phone starts buzzing over and over with calls from Hannah.

"Don't you think you should talk to her?" Max suggests. 

Toby bites his lip. "What if it's... What if it was her, after all? The - whatsit, beacon thing." 

Mia had managed to make it sound so unlikely that Hannah had had anything to do with what had nearly happened to Max. Toby wishes he felt so sure of her innocence now. 

"What if it wasn't?" Max counters.

"And if it was," Fred adds, "What if she can help Leo and Mattie? Maybe she can tell us something about where it came from." 

Toby looks at both of them. Both brothers stare unblinkingly at him - expressions friendly, but expectant. "You could be right," he says, eventually. 

He answers the next call that comes in, hears a sobbing breath on the other end. "Toby!" says Hannah. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," he says, guardedly.

"I've done something I.... Something you won't forgive me for," she continues. "But it might not be too late. Have you seen any of the Synths you were telling me about?" 

Toby feels the last bit of hope ebb away, faintly surprised that there was any of it left to lose. "I know what you did," he says, his voice hard now. "And if you want me to forgive you, you're gonna tell me why." 

He puts her on speaker, and walks a step closer to Max and Fred so they can listen in. 

"It's my grandfather," she says. "I told you we moved here because he died. He didn't. He was attacked by a Synth. Not a normal one. He was trying to make them like -- like the ones you were telling me about. A Synth that can feel. But it went wrong, and...and when we came down to help him recover, he said he had a job for me..." 

"You mean," Toby says slowly, "The whole time -- since before I even told you about them -- you already knew?" 

She sniffs. "Yes. He told me your name. He got me into your school. Then all I had to do was give you the chip. But I... I didn't want to do it, Toby." 

_She already knew_ , Toby thinks to himself, somehow elated by it even under the strain of the situation. _It's not my fault. It's not my fault, after all._

This new information lends him confidence which he channels, stern, down the phone line. "It doesn't matter if you wanted to. You did. Now the least you can do is help us keep them safe," he says. He lifts his eyes to meet Fred's. "What can you tell me about your grandfather? Who is he?" 

A shaky breath. 

"Hannah? Come on. My mum's gone after him, so has my sister, and our friend. I have to know how much danger they're in." He pauses. "Hannah..." he says again. 

"Alright," she says at last. "His name's Edwin Hobb. He's a scientist. He-- he's not a bad man, Toby, he just--"

"He just wants to make my friends into slaves," Toby says. "He's tried it before." 

He can see the fear in Fred's eyes, notices Max shift slightly closer to his brother, protective. 

"I'm sorry, Toby," Hannah says shakily. 

"Yeah," is all he replies, and he ends the call. 

"We need to warn them," Fred says immediately. "They think they're dealing with someone new. They need to know it's Hobb, that they don't have any element of surprise to work with." 

"I'll try and get hold of Leo," Max agrees, and Toby nods, switches screens to call Mattie. 

To his disappointment, her ringtone sounds from the dining table, discarded in the rush from the house. Sophie, who's passing on her way to Mia, Mr Patches in hand, picks it up and brings it him. "Toby! Mattie's phone is ringing." 

"Yeah, thanks, Soph," Toby murmurs, taking it. He looks down at his sister's phone thoughtfully, a plan forming.

"Leo. It's Max. Please, you need to be careful. The chip was from Hobb, he's back." 

Max ends the call, looking worried. "That was his answerphone." 

"He won't check it," says Fred. "He never does."

"I'll try Mum," says Toby, but the call doesn't even go through to answerphone - she must be out of range. 

"Okay," he says, swapping back to Mattie's mobile. "One more shot." 

* * *

The phones in Cleobury Mortimer's police station - all two of them - have been resoundingly silent since eleven o'clock this morning, when a Mrs McWilliams had phoned to report the theft of her grandson's bike. While she was still talking, said grandson had ridden round the corner riding said bike, so even that had been a false alarm. Since then, not a country mouse has stirred. The recently installed police presence, Pete Drummond and Karen Voss, are - needless to say - bored out of their minds.

"Give it 'til six," Pete says, draining what's left of his coffee. "Then as far as I'm concerned, we can do 'sitting around bored' just as well at home as in here."

Karen grins. "I think we can do a bit better than that, at home. Or have you had your imagination entirely sucked out of you?" 

Pete looks around the lifeless station. He picks up his empty mug. "At this point, would you blame me?" He stands, angles himself toward the little sink in the corner of the office they affectionately call 'the kitchen'. "Fancy a cuppa?" he says. 

Karen pretends to consider it. "Mmm, not this time."

Pete grins, and heads for the kettle. As he makes his coffee, he reminds himself once again that his new life in the town time forgot is not a permanent one; that they will apply for a transfer as soon as they've sat out their minimum transition period; that Cleobury's tranquillity is a godsend, really. Nobody looks for a synthetic policewoman in a town that boasts precisely four Synths - Pete knows, he has the license paperwork. 

Out here, surrounded by farmland their families have worked by organic hand for generations, people just aren't as interested in Synths as their city counterparts. It's the perfect hiding place from anyone who might mean Karen harm - and they have each other, and fairly clean, if not spotless, professional records. It could be a lot worse.

It wouldn't hurt for something to _happen_ every once in a while, though, either. Sometimes he thinks Shaw did it on purpose - tucked them away in toytown as revenge for them getting involved in the Hawkins/Hobb debacle. 

If only he knew _how_ involved.

Above the sound of the kettle boiling, Pete hears the trill of his mobile ringtone. Karen reaches effortlessly across to his adjoining desk, and, without pausing to aim, throws the phone directly into Pete's outstretched hand. He's learnt to trust her flawless spatial awareness by now - don't try to catch, just keep still and wait for impact. 

Caller ID claims it's _Matilda Hawkins_ , and a flicker of interest surfaces as Pete remembers the hurried exchange of numbers that had taken place in the cafe, on the offchance they'd need to reprise their partnership before he handed over the laptop. He'd heard nothing from her - from any of them save Karen - since the day it had all seemed over. 

"DS Drummond," he answers, curious. 

"Hi," comes a voice, and it's not the Hawkins girl, as far as he can tell. "This is Toby Hawkins." 

Her brother, then. Pete remembers locking eyes with him over the table as Matilda had typed at hyper-speed, both just as clueless as each other about what she was doing. 

"I think my sister's in danger," continues the kid. "She doesn't know I'm calling you. But she left her phone at home and they took the only car, so we can't follow." 

Pete raises his eyebrows. "And what's it to do with me?" 

Toby pauses. "Nothing," he admits. "But it's about Hobb. He's after them again." 

"Them? You mean–"

"The conscious synths, yeah."

Pete glances across at Karen, who's sorting through a pile of paperwork, appearing absent-minded if only because she's thinking of a thousand other things at the same time, refusing to suspend her ability to feel boredom during working hours, because, in her words, 'it's not fair, when you can't do the same'. 

A frown sets in his face. "Do you have an address?" 

* * *

"Do you think he'll be able to help us?" Max asks, as Toby rings off and flops down on the sofa between him and Fred. The sounds of Mia entertaining Sophie in the next room can faintly be heard in the silence that follows the phonecall. 

"I dunno," Toby says. "But...maybe. He cares about - you know, the other one of you lot."

"Beatrice," Fred supplies. 

"And he helped us before. Mats trusted him, she must have. Or she wouldn't have kept his number." 

"If Hobb's out to get us," says Fred, "Anything is worth trying."

"Don't worry. We won't let him take you again," says Max. 

Nobody points out what all three are thinking: that that hadn't stopped him before. 

* * *

They've covered half of one corridor before Leo shows any signs of frustration. " _Nothing_ ," he says grimly, deleting all traces of his search from the latest machine, as Mattie puts back the files she's been nosing through. "Just -- medical stuff. Nothing about AI. What, did they want Max to cure heart disease for them?" 

Mattie slams the filing cabinet shut, and turns to him. "Okay," she says, "If this is a dumb idea, just tell me, but... Did you bring the beacon chip thing?" 

He fishes it out of his pocket. "I turned it off once we had the address. Didn't want them to know we were coming for them." 

"But we must be _really_ close, now," Mattie points out. "We know it's somewhere in this complex. Can't we just use it to narrow down the location of their machine? They won't have time to do much about it." 

"We'd need a Synth to lock on to it," Leo points out. "Otherwise it's just a flashing light." 

Their lookout - Laura - steps back from the doorway. "Someone's coming," she says. "The same way we came." 

Leo gives Mattie a conspiratorial look. "What colour are their eyes?" he asks. 

"No, it's a person -- a human, I mean," says Laura quietly. They wait, carefully concealed on the side of the room not visible from the door, until the footsteps have passed. "Look, you two don't really need me here. Why don't I go on a Synth hunt while you search the next room?" 

Mattie and Leo glance at each other. Mattie shrugs. 

"All right," Leo agrees. "One tap on the chin, if you can, before it gets a good visual on you. Then come and get us. Once it's following the beacon, it won't matter who it sees." 

"Right you are," Laura says, and leaves the room, after checking the corridor both ways. Mattie and Leo follow her out, but duck into the next room as Laura carries on straight.

* * *

Niska and Cindy drop swiftly from the window and head for the smaller building opposite them. "Got the codes for this one?" Niska checks. 

"Yes. What if we've–"

She stops short as a door straight ahead of them opens, and a Synth emerges. He's dressed as a medic, like Cindy - but where Cindy's holding a bag of medical supplies she picked up to go with her disguise... this one's holding a gun. 

"I am armed," he says, conversationally. 

Niska and Cindy stand perfectly still, and when Niska begins to raise her hands to show her lack of weaponry, Cindy does so too, the stolen bag dropping by her feet. 

"Can you confirm that I have let you know I'm armed? Has the information been received?"

Cindy glances at Niska, wide-eyed.

"Yes," Niska says shortly. "You're armed. Got it." 

* * *

The corridor yields nothing, but the thrill of the chase has caught hold of Laura now, so when she comes to a door that leads outside, she chances it. There is more to this complex than they've seen so far, she reasons, and maybe she'll catch a Synth traveling between outbuildings. 

By sheer luck, she can see not one but _three_ of them, facing off in a triangle formation not far away. She starts towards them, assuming they're sharing data, and reasoning that the weird trance-like state they get in to do that will be ideal for her purposes. It's only when she's too close to change her mind that she notices two things. One: the Synth nearest to her is Niska. Two: one of the others is holding a gun. 

She falls in line with Niska and the other female, and in the absence of a better response to gunpoint, she too raises her hands in surrender. 

Niska turns to her, with eyes that say _What are you doing here?_

Laura tries her best to eyeball back with _I could ask the same of you._

* * *

Unit Four is confused.

He replays the instructions his master had given him. 

_Let them know you're armed, but don't harm either one of them._

Let them know you're armed. He'd done that. He'd even checked. Both the intruders who were originally present had understood he was armed.

_Don't harm either one of them._

_Either._

The word has two functions in the organic language of English: determiner, and pronoun. In both cases it refers to one or the other of _two_ people or things. 

Two. 

Either means two. 

_Do not harm two of them._ His master does not want him to harm two people or things. There are two people or things his master does not want him to harm.

But what of the third?

Unit Four was born with a very basic understanding of desire, but from the very moment he could feel anything - almost a whole week ago now - he has wanted to please his master.

Do not harm two of them, Unit Four thinks, and he counts three. 


End file.
